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EDUCATION 



to 



Intellectual, Moral, and Physical 



BY 



HERBERT SPENCER 

[i 

READING-CIRCLE EDITION 

With Notes, Criticisms, and a Topical Index for Reviews 




] gf WASHE S? 



•4> r . -,<^ 



SYRACUSE, N". Y. 

C. W. BARDEEN, PUBLISHER 

1894 



Copyright, 1894, by C. W. Bardbex 



There are three Englishmen who have written so well that, as it seems, 
they will be read by English-speaking teachers of all time. These are 
Ascham, Locke, and Herbert Spencer. If a teacher does not know these he 
is not likely to know or care anything about the literature of education.— 
R. H. Quick. 

I agree with Mr. Quick in considering it one of the most important 
works on education in the English language. I strongly recommend any 
of you to get it, and to read it with all possible attention.— Joseph Payne. 

Mr. Spencer's essay, then deserves the attention of educators. There is 
scarcely a book in which a keen scent for details comes more agreeably to 
animate a fund of solid arguments, and from which it is more useful to 
extract the substance. However, it must not be read save with precaution. 
The brilliant English thinker sometimes fails in justice and measure, and his 
bold generalizations need to be tested with care.— Gilbert Compayre. 



INTRODUCTION 




Herbert Spencer was born in Derby, April 27, 1820. 
His father, his grandfather, 
and his uncles were all 
teachers. His father pre- 
pared an " Inventional Ge- 
ometry", consisting of 
questions and problems de- 
signed to familiarize the 
pupil with geometrical con- 
ceptions, and to exercise 
his inventive capacity in actual and accurate con- 
structions with instruments. The book has been 
reprinted in this country, and is still in considerable 
usa 

When Herbert was three years old, his father's 
health broke down, compelling him to give up his 
school and remove to Nottingham, where he en- 
gaged in lace manufacture. Three or four years 
later the family returned to Derby, and the father 
took to private teaching. 

Herbert did not learn to read till he was seven, 
being first attracted to "Sanford and Merton." 
When afterward he went to school he was inatten- 

(8) 



4 INTRODUCTION 

tive and idle. He was greatly given to games, fish- 
ing, birds-nesting, country rambles, gathering wild 
fruit and mushrooms. 

His father did not permit him to be urged, but 
encouraged him to keep insects through their trans- 
formations, and led him into drawing from objects. 
Subsequently he attended his uncle's school, where 
he was considered backward in things requiring 
memory and recitation, but in advance of the rest in 
intelligence. He was often in disgrace for dis- 
obedience. He browsed over his father's library, 
picking up much varied information, and was en- 
couraged in constructive operations, such as car- 
pentering. 

At thirteen (1833) he was sent to another uncle, a 
Cambridge graduate, but would not be persuaded to 
go to the university, and prepared to be a civil 
engineer. He did little in classics, but excelled in 
mathematics, and though he yi elded more than be- 
fore to discipline he was still in occasional disgrace. 

At sixteen (1836) he returned for a year's study 
at home, and the next year taught for three months 
as a supply in the school he had first attended. 
His father wanted him to become a teacher, but 
that fall he became assistant to a civil-engineer, and 
spent a year in making surveys and drawings, and 
in mathematical studies. In 1838 he became an 
assistant to the engineer of one of the railways, and 
while here invented the velocimeter. 



INTRODUCTION O 

While here he became interested in geology, and 
rejected the doctrine of the development of species 
set forth in Lyell's " Principles ". In 1839 he had 
become a believer in the general idea that all or- 
ganized beings had arisen by development. 

In April, 1841, he came home, and spent two 
years in miscellaneous study. In the spring of 1843 
he went to London hoping to find some literary 
occupation, but after a temporary engagement as 
engineer returned to Derby. During 1846, '47, he 
was occupied with inventions, and contributed 
papers to scientific periodicals. In 1848 he began 
writing "Social Statistics", and completed his first 
volume in 1850, having in the meanwhile become 
sub-editor of The Economist. 

At thirty-five, his health gave way from the in- 
tense labor he put upon " The Principles of Psychol- 
ogy" published that year (1855); and when he 
entered in 1860 upon his philosophical undertaking, 
laying out twenty years of original work, many 
thought the project was foolhardy, and must prove 
fatal. He has, however, published " First Princi- 
ples " (1862, 1867) ; " Principles of Biology " (1864) ; 
" Principles of Sociology, I-IV (1876-1880) ; " Data 
of Ethics" (1879); "Study of Sociology" (1872); 
" Descriptive Sociology " (1873-78); "Ceremonial 
Institutions " (1879); " Political Institutions " (1882); 
" Ecclesiastical Institutions " (1885) ; " Essays : Sci- 
entific, Political, and Speculative" (4 vols.), etc., 



6 INTRODUCTION 

besides a multitude of magazine articles ; and he is 
still at work. He visited the United States in 1882, 
and in 1883 was elected corresponding member of 
the French Academy of Moral and Political Sciences 
to fill the place left vacant by the death of Ralph 
Waldo Emerson. 

His " Education " appeared as a book in 1861. 
being made up of previous review articles, as stated 
in the preface. It is undoubtedly the most impor- 
tant and influential treatise upon the subject of the 
present century. 

This edition differs from those that have previ- 
ously appeared principally in these three features : 

(1) Side-indexing throughout the text, making 
the book more ready of reference ; 

(2) Notes, with extracts from the principal criti- 
cisms upon the book, including those of R. H. 
Quick, Joseph Payne, W. H. Payne, and Gilbert 
Compayre ; 

(3) A minute topical index for reviews. 

It is believed that the notes will be found es- 
pecially valuable. So forceful is Mr. Spencer's style 
that a young teacher reading the book for the first 
time might feel that there was no other side to the 
views presented. By reading the sharp criticisms 
here given, he will be better prepared to judge of 
the principles Mr. Spencer lays down, and to defend 
them, if they are attacked. C. W. Bakdeen. 

Syracuse, K F., 189 4.. 



PREFACE 

The four chapters of which this work consists, 
originally appeared as four Review-articles : the 
first in the Westminster Review for July, 1859 ; the 
second in the North British Revieiv for May, 1854 ; 
and the remaining two in the British Quarterly 
Revieiv, for April, 1858, and for April, 1859. Sev- 
erally treating different divisions of the subject, but 
together forming a tolerably complete whole, I orig- 
inally wrote them with a view to their republication 
in a united form ; and they would some time since 
have thus been issued, had not a legal difficulty 
stood in the way. This difficulty being now re- 
moved, I hasten to fulfil the intention with which 
they were written. 

That in their first shape these chapters were sev- 
erally independent, is the reason to be assigned for 
some slight repetitions which occur in them : one 
leading idea, more especially, re-appearing twice. 
As, however, this idea is on each occasion presented 
under a new form, and as it can scarcely be too 
much enforced, I have not thought well to omit any 
of the passages embodying it. 

Some additions of importance will be found in 



8 PREFACE 

the chapter on Intellectual Education ; and in the 
one on Physical Education there are a few minor 
alterations. But the chief changes which have heen 
made, are changes of expression : all of the essays 
having undergone a careful verbal revision. 

H. S. 
London, May, 1861. 



CONTENTS 



I. What Knowledge is of the Most Worth? 11 
II. Intellectual Education, - - - - - - 93 

III. Moral Education, - - - - - - - 163 

IV. Physical Education, ------ 225 

Notes, - ----------- 295 

Topical Analysis, - - - 324 



EDUCATION 



CHAPTER I 

WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH ? 

It has been truly remarked that in order of time 
decoration precedes dress. Among people Function 
who submit to great physical suffering to l appeai ated 
that they may have themselves hand- ance * 
somely tattooed, extremes of temperature are borne 
with but little attempt at mitigation. Humboldt 
tells us that an Orinoco Indian, though quite re- 
gardless of bodily comfort, will yet labor for a fort- 
night to purchase pigment wherewith to make 
himself admired ; and that the same woman who 
would not hesitate to leave her hut without a frag- 
ment of clothing on, would not dare to commit such 
a breach of decorum as to go out unpainted. Voy- 
agers uniformly find that colored beads and trinkets 
are much more prized by wild tribes than are 
calicoes or broadcloths. And the anecdotes we have 
of the ways in which, when shirts and coats are 
given, they turn them to some ludicrous display, 
show how completely the idea of ornament predom- 
inates over that of use. 

(ii) 



12 THE KNOWLEDGE OF MOST WORTH 

Nay, there are still more extreme illustrations : 
witness the fact narrated by Capt. Speke of his 
African attendants, who strutted about in their 
goat-skin mantles when the weather was fine, but 
when it was wet, took them off, folded them up, and 
went about naked, shivering in the rain ! Indeed, 
the facts of aboriginal life seem to indicate that 
dress is developed out of decorations. And when 
we remember that even among ourselves most think 
more about the fineness of the fabric than its warmth, 
and more about the cut than the convenience — 
when we see that the function is still in great meas- 
ure subordinated to the appearance — we have further 
reason for inferring such an origin. 

It is not a little curious that the like relations 
hold with the mind. Among mental as 
ment°aTbefore among bodily acquisitions, the ornamental 
comes before the useful. Not only in 
times past, but almost as much in our own era, that 
knowledge which conduces to personal wellbeing 
has been postponed to that which brings applause. 
In the Greek schools, music, poetry, rhetoric, and a 
philosophy which, until Socrates taught, had but 
little bearing upon action, were the dominant sub- 
jects ; while knowledge aiding the arts of life had a 
very subordinate place. And in our own univer- 
sities and schools at the present moment the like 
antithesis holds. 



PRACTICAL USELESSNESS OF THE CLASSICS 13 

We are guilty of something like a platitude when 
we say that throughout his after-career a Latin and 

, n G eek use- 

DOy, m nine cases out 01 ten, applies his less. 

Latin and Greek to no practical purposes. The re- 
mark is trite that in his shop, or his office, in man- 
aging his estate or his family, in playing his part as 
director of a bank or a railway, he is very little aided 
by this knowledge he took so many years to acquire 
— so little, that generally the greater part of it drops 
out of his memory ; and if he occasionally vents a 
Latin quotation, or alludes to some Greek myth, it 
is less to throw light on the topic in hand than for 
the sake of effect. If we inquire what is the real 
motive for giving boys a classical education, we find 
it to be simply conformity to public opinion. Men 
dress their children's minds as they do their bodies, 
in the prevailing fashion. As the Orinoco Indian 
puts on his paint before leaving his hut, not with a 
view to any direct benefit, but because he would be 
ashamed to be seen without it, so a boy's drilling in 
Latin and Greek is insisted on, not because of their 
intrinsic value, but that he may not be disgraced by 
being found ignorant of them — that he may have 
"the education of a gentleman " — the badge mark- 
ing a certain social position, and bringing a conse- 
quent respect. 

This parallel is still more clearly displayed in the 
case of the other sex. In the treatment women 

dr6ss to t)6 

of both mind and body the decorative admired. 



14 THE KNOWLEDGE OF MOST WORTH 

element has continued to predominate in a greater 
degree among women than among men. Originally, 
personal adornment occupied the attention of both 
sexes equally. In these latter days of civilization, 
however, we see that in the dress of men the regard 
for appearance has in a considerable degree yielded 
to the regard for comfort ; while in their education 
the useful has of late been trenching on the orna- 
mental. In neither direction has this change gone 
so far with women. The wearing of earrings, fin- 
ger-rings, bracelets ; the elaborate dressings of the 
hair ; the still occasional use of paint ; the immense 
labor bestowed in making habiliments sufficiently 
attractive, and the great discomfort that will be sub- 
mitted to for the sake of conformity, show how 
greatly, in the attiring of women, the desire of 
approbation overrides the desire for warmth and 
convenience. 

And similarly in their education, the immense 
Their educa- preponderance of " accomplishments " 

tion " accom- ,. ., 

piishments ". proves how here, too, use is subordinated 
to display. Dancing, deportment, the piano, sing- 
ing, drawing — what a large space do these occupy ! 
If you ask why Italian and German are learnt, you 
will find that, under all the sham reasons given, 
the real reason is, that a knowledge of those tongues 
is thought ladylike. It is not that the books written 
in them may be utilized, which they scarcely ever 
are, but that Italian and German songs may be 



SOCIAL INFLUENCE THE AIM 15 

sung, and that the extent of attainment may bring 
whispered admiration. The births, deaths, and 
marriages of kings, and other like historic triviali- 
ties, are committed to memory, not because of any 
direct benefits that can possibly result from knowing 
them, but because society considers them parts of a 
good education — because the absence of such knowl- 
edge may bring the contempt of others. When we 
have named reading, writing, spelling, grammar, 
arithmetic, and sewing, we have named about all 
the things a girl is taught with a view to their 
actual uses in life ; and even some of these have 
more reference to the good opinion of others than to 
immediate personal welfare. 

Thoroughly to realize the truth that with the 
mind as with the body the ornamental social 
precedes the useful, it is requisite to glance the aim. 
at its rationale. This lies in the fact that, from the 
far past down even to the present, social needs have 
subordinated individual needs, and that the chief 
social need has been the control of individuals. It 
is not, as we commonly suppose, that there are no 
governments but those of monarchs, and parlia- 
ments, and constituted authorities. These acknowl- 
edged governments are supplemented by other 
unacknowledged ones, that grow up in all circles, in 
which every man or woman strives to be king or 
queen or lesser dignitary. To get above some and 
be reverenced by them, and to propitiate those who 



16 THE KNOWLEDGE OF MOST WORTH 

a#e above us, is the universal struggle in which the 
chief energies of life are expended. By the accumu- 
lation of wealth, by style of living, by beauty of 
dress, by display of knowledge or intellect, each 
tries to subjugate others, and so aids in weaving 
that ramified network of restraints by which society 
is kept in order. 

It is not the savage chief only, who, in formidable 
war-paint, with scalps at his belt, aims to strike awe 
into his inferiors ; it is not only the belle who, by 
elaborate toilet, polished manners, and numerous 
accomplishments, strives to "make conquests"; but 
the scholar, the historian, the philosopher, use their 
acquirements to the same end. We are none of us 
content with quietly unfolding our own individuali- 
ties to the full in all directions, but have a restless 
craving to impress our individualities upon others, 
and in some way subordinate them. 

And this it is which determines the character of 
our education. Not what knowledge is of most real 
worth, ia^ the consideration, but what will bring 
most applause, honor, respect — what will most con- 
duce to social position and influence — what will be 
most imposing. As, throughout life, not what we 
are, but what we shall be thought, is the question ; 
so in education, the question is, not the intrinsic 
value of knowledge, so much as its extrinsic effects 
on others. And this being our dominant idea, 
direct utility is scarcely more regarded than by tjie 




COMPARATIVE VALUE OF STUDIES 17 

barbarian when filing his teeth and staining his 
nails. 

If there requires further evidence of the rude, 
undeveloped character of our education, comparative 

• value of 

we have it m the tact that the compara- studies. 
tive worths of different kinds of knowledge have 
been as yet scarcely even discussed — much less dis- 
cussed in a methodic way with definite results. 
Not only is it that no standard of relative values has 
yet been agreed upon, but the existence of any such 
standard has not been conceived in a clear man- 
ner. And not only is it that the existence of 
such a standard has not been clearly conceived, but 
the need for it seems to have been scarcely even felt. 
Men read books on this topic, and attend lectures 
on that; decide that their children shall be in- 
structed in these branches of knowledge, and shall 
not be instructed in those ; and all under the guid- 
ance of mere custom, or liking, or prejudice ; with- 
out ever considering the enormous importance of 
determining in some rational way what things are 
really most worth learning. 

It is true that in all circles we hear occasional re- 
marks on the importance of this or the other order 
of information. But whether the degree of its im- 
portance justifies the expenditure of the time needed 
to acquire it; and whether there are not things of 
more importance to which such time might be better 
devoted ; are queries which, if raised at all, are dis- 



18 THE KNOWLEDGE OP MOST WORTH 

posed of quite summarily, according to personal 
predilections. 

It is true also, that now and then we hear 
revived the standing controversy respecting the com- 
parative merits of classics and mathematics. Not 
only, however, is this controversy carried on in an 
empirical manner, with no reference to an ascer- 
tained criterion, but the question at issue is totally 
insignificant when compared with the general ques- 
tion of which it is part. To suppose that deciding 
whether a mathematical or a classical education is 
the best, is deciding what is the proper curriculum, 
is much the same thing as to suppose that the whole 
of dietetics lies in ascertaining whether or not bread 
is more nutritive than potatoes ! 

The question which we contend is of such trans- 
cendent moment, is, not whether such or The question 

Of VBlitt'iVd 

such knowledge is of worth, but what is worth, 
its re lative worth. When they have named certain 
advantages which a given course of study has 
secured them, persons are apt to assume that they 
have justified themselves : quite forgetting that the 
adequateness of the advantages is the point to be 
judged. 

There is, perhaps, not a subject to which men de- 
vote attention that has not some value. A year 
dilligently spent in getting up heraldry, would very 
possibly give a little further insight into ancient 
manners and morals, and into the origin of names. 



RELATIVE WORTH OF STUDIES 19 

Any one who should learn the distances between all 

the towns in England, might, in the course of his 

life, find one or two of the thousand facts he had 

acquired of some slight service when- arranging a 

journey. Gathering together all the small gossip of 

a county, profitless occupation as it would be, might 

yet occasionally help to establish some useful feet — 

say, a good example of hereditary transmission. 

But in these cases, every one would admit that 

there was no proportion between the required labor 

and the probable benefit. No one would tolerate 

the proposal to devote some years of a boy's time to 

getting such information, at the cost of much more 

valuable information which he might else have got. 

And if here the test of relative value is appealed to 

and held conclusive, then should it be appealed to 

and held conclusive throughout. Had we time to 

master all subjects we need not be particular. To 

quote the old song : — 

Could a man be secure 

That his clays would endure 

As of old, for a thousand long years, 

What things might he know ! 

What deeds might he do ! 

And all without hurry or care. 

" But we that have but span-long lives " must 
ever bear in mind our limited time for acquisition. 
And remembering how narrowly this time is limited, 
not only by the shortness of life, but also still more 
by the business of life, we ought to be especially 



20 THE KXOWLEDGE OF MOST WORTH 

solicitous to employ what time we have to the great- 
est advantage. Before devoting years to some sub- 
ject which fashion or fancy suggests, it is surely wise 
to weigh with great care the worth of the results, as 
compared with the worth of various alternative re- 
sults, which the same years might bring if otherwise 
applied. 

In education, then, this is the question of ques- 
importance tions, which it is high time we discussed 

Of the sub- . it nn r> • • 

ject. m some methodic way. lhe first m im- 

portance, though the last to be considered, is the 
problem — how to decide among the conflicting 
claims of various subjects on our attention. Before 
there can be a rational curriculum, we must settle 
which things it most concerns us to know ; or, to 
use a word of Bacon's, now unfortunately obsolete — 
we must determine the relative values of knowledges. 

To this end, a measure of value is the first 
The measure requisite. And happily, respecting the 
of value. .j- rue measure f value, as expressed in 
general terms, there can be no dispute. Every one 
in contending for the worth of any particular order 
of information, does so by showing its bearing upon 
some part of life. In reply to the- question, " Of 
what use is it?" the mathematician, linguist, nat- 
uralist, or philosopher, explains the way in which 
his learning beneficially influences action — saves 
from evil or secures good — conduces to happiness. 

When the teacher of writing has pointed out how 



THE PROBLEM OF RIGHT LIVING 21 

great an aid writing is to success in business — that 
is, to the obtainment of sustenance — that is, to sat- 
isfactory living — he is held to have proved his case. 
And when the collector of dead facts (say a numis- 
matist) fails to make clear any appreciable effects 
which these facts can produce on human welfare, he 
is obliged to admit that they are comparatively 
valueless. All then, either directly or by implica- 
tion, appeal to this as the ultimate test. 

How to live ? — that is the essential question for 
us. Not how to live in the mere material The problem 
sense only, but in the widest sense. The living 
general problem which comprehends every special 
problem is — the right ruling of conduct in all direc- 
tions under all circumstances. In what way to 
treat the body ; in what way to treat the mind ; in 
what way to manage our affairs ; in what way to 
bring up a family ; in what way to behave as a 
citizen ; in what way to utilize all those sources of 
happiness which nature supplies — how to use all our 
faculties to the greatest advantage of ourselves and 
others — how to live completely? And this being 
the great thing needful for us to learn, is, by con- 
sequence, the great thing which education has to 
teach. To prepare us for complete living is the func- 
tion which education has to discharge ; and the only 
rational mode of judging of an educational course 
is to judge in what degree it discharges such 
function. — 



22 THE KNOWLEDGE OF MOST WORTH 

This test, never used in its entirety, but rarely 
importance even partially used, and used then in 
'selection of a vague, half conscious way, has to be 
studies. applied consciously, methodically, and 

throughout all cases. It behooves us to set before 
ourselves, and ever to keep clearly in view, com- 
plete living as the end to be achieved, so that in 
bringing up our children we may choose subjects 
and methods of instruction with deliberate reference 
to this end. Not only ought we to cease from the 
mere unthinking adoption of the current fashion in 
education, which has no better warrant than any 
other fashion, but we must also rise above that rude, 
empirical style of judging displayed by those more 
intelligent people who do bestow seme care in over- 
seeing the cultivation of their children's minds. It 
must not suffice simply to think that such or sucli 
information will be useful in after life, or that this 
kind of knowledge is of more practical value than 
that, but avc must seek out some process of estimat- 
ing their respective values, so that as far as possible 
we may possitivcly know which are most deserving 
of attention. 

Doubtless the task is difficult — perhaps never to 
be more than approximately achieved. But, con- 
sidering the vastness of the interests at stake, its 
difficulty is no reason for pusillanimously passing it 
by, but rather for devoting every energy to its mas- 
tery. And if we only proceed systematically we 



RATIONAL ORDER OF SUBORDINATION 23 

may very soon get at results of no small moment. 
Our first step must obviously be to classify, in the 
order of their importance, the leading Kinds of 
kinds of activity which constitute human actlvlt y- 
life. They may be naturally arranged into : — 

1. Those activities which directly minister to self- 
preservation. 

2. Those activities which, by securing the neces- 
saries of life, indirectly minister to self-preservation. 

3. Those activities which have for their end the 
rearing and discipline of offspring. 

4. Those activities which are involved in the 
maintenance of proper social and political relations. 

5. Those miscellaneous activities which fill up 
the leisure part of life, devoted to the gratification 
of the tastes and feelings. 

That these stand in something like their true 
order of subordination it needs no long ist, seif- 
consideration to show. The actions and tion. 
precautions by which, from moment to moment, we 
secure personal safety, must clearly take precedence 
of all others. Could there be a man, ignorant as an 
infant of all surrounding objects and movements, 
or how to guide himself among them, he would 
pretty certainly lose his life the first time he went 
into the street : notwithstanding any amount of 
learning he might have on other matters. And as 
entire ignorance in all other directions would be less 
promptly fatal than entire ignorance in this direc- 



24 THE KNOWLEDGE OF MOST WORTH 

tion, it must be admitted that knowledge immedi- 
ately conducive of self-preservation is of primary 
importance. 

That next after direct self-preservation comes the 
2d self- indirect self-preservation which consists 
maintenance. m ac q U i rm g the means of living, none 
will question. That a man's industrial functions 
must be considered before his parental ones, is man- 
ifest from the fact that, speaking generally, the dis- 
charge of the parental functions is made possible 
only by the previous discharge of the industrial 
ones. The power of self-maintenance necessarily 
preceding the power of maintaining offspring, it 
follows that knowledge needful for self-maintenance 
has stronger claims than knowledge needful for 
family welfare — is second in value to none save 
knowledge needful for immediate self-preservation. 

As the family comes before the State in order of 
3d, parental time— as the bringing up of children is 
duties. possible before the State exists, or when 

it has ceased to be, whereas the State is rendered pos- 
sible only by the bringing up of children — it follows 
that the duties of the parent demand closer attention 
than those of the citizen. Or, to use a further argu- 
ment — since the goodness of a society ultimately 
depends on the nature of its citizens ; and since the 
nature of its citizens is more modifiable by early 
training than by anything else — we must conclude 
that the welfare of the familv underlies the welfare 



RATIONAL ORDER OF SUBORDINATION 25 

of society. And hence knowledge directly conduc- 
ing to the first, must take precedence of knowledge 
directly conducing to the last. 

Those various forms of pleasurable occupation 
which fill up the leisure left by graver 4th ?ood 
occupations — the enjoyments of music, cltlzenshl P- 
poetry, painting, etc. — manifestly imply a pre-exist- 
ing society. Not only is a considerable development 
of them impossible without a long-established social 
union, but their very subject-matter consists in great 
part of social sentiments and sympathies. Not only 
does society supply the conditions to their growth, 
but also the ideas and sentiments they express. 
And, consequently, that part of human conduct 
which constitutes good citizenship is of more moment 
than that which goes out in accomplishments or 
exercise of the tastes ; and, in education, preparation 
for the one must rank before preparation for the 
other. 

Such then, we repeat, is something like the rational 
order of subordination : — That education 5th the re _ 
which prepares for direct self-preserva- finements - 
tion ; that which prepares for indirect self-preserva- 
tion ; that which prepares for parenthood ; that 
which prepares for citizenship ; that which prepares 
for the miscellaneous refinements of life. We do 
not mean to say that these divisions are definitely 
separable. We do not deny that they are intricately 
entangled with each other in such way that there 



26 THE KNOWLEDGE OF MOST WORTH 

can be no training for any that is not in some meas- 
ure a training for all. Nor do we question that of 
each division there are portions more important 
than certain portions of the preceding divisions ; 
that, for instance, a man of much skill in business 
but little other faculty, may fall further below the 
standard of complete living than one of but moder- 
ate ability in money-getting but great judgment 
as a parent ; or that exhaustive information bearing 
on right social action, joined with entire want of 
general culture in literature and the fine arts, is less 
desirable than a more moderate share of the one 
joined with some of the other. But, after making 
due qualifications, there still remain these broadly- 
marked divisions ; and it still continues substan- 
tially true that these divisions subordinate one 
another in the foregoing order, because the corres- 
ponding divisions of life make one another possible 
in that order. 

Of course the ideal of education is — complete 
preparation in all these divisions. But 

tiontobe failing this ideal, as in our phase of civil- 
maintained. ° x 

ization every one must do more or less, 

the aim should be to maintain a due proportion be- 
tween the degrees of preparation in each. Not 
exhaustive cultivation in any one, supremely im- 
portant though it may be ; not even an exclusive 
attention to the two, three, or four divisions of great- 
est importance ; but an attention to all ; greatest 



INTRINSIC, QUASI-INTRINSIC, CONVENTIONAL 27 

where the value is greatest, less where the value is 
less, least where the value is least. For the average 
man (not to forget the cases in which peculiar apti- 
tude for some one department of knowledge rightly 
makes pursuit of that one the bread-winning occupa- 
tion) — for the average man, we say, the desideratum 
is, a training that approaches nearest to perfection in 
the things which most subserve complete living, and 
falls more and more below perfection in the things 
that have more and more remote bearings on com- 
plete living. 

In regulating education by this standard, there 
are some general considerations that Intrinsic 
should be ever present to us. The worth value- 
of any kind of culture, as aiding complete living, 
may be either necessary or more or less contingent. 
There is knowledge of intrinsic value ; knowledge of 
quasi-intrinsic value ; and knowledge of conven- 
tional value. Such facts as that sensations of numb- 
ness and tingling commonly precede paralysis, that 
the resistance of water to a body moving through it 
varies as the square of the velocity, that chlorine is a 
disinfectant, — these, and the truths of Science in gen- 
eral, are of intrinsic value : they will bear on human 
conduct ten thousand years hence as they do now. 

The extra knowledge of our own language, which 
is given by an acquaintance with Latin Quasi . intrin , 
and Greek, may be considered to have a S1C value - 
value that is quasi-intrinsic : it must exist for us 



28 THE KNOWLEDGE OF MOST WORTH 

and for other races whose languages owe much to 
these sources ; but will last only as long as our 
languages last. 

While that kind of information which, in our 
conventional schools, usurps the name History— the 
value. mere tissue of names and dates and dead 

unmeaning events — has a conventional value only : 
it has not the remotest bearing upon any of our 
actions, and is of use only for the avoidance of 
those unpleasant criticisms which current opinion 
passes upon its absence. Of course, as those facts 
which concern all mankind throughout all time 
must be held of greater moment than those which 
concern only a portion of them during a limited 
era, and of far greater moment than those which 
concern only a portion of them during the continu- 
ance of a fashion, it follows that in a rational esti- 
mate, knowledge of intrinsic worth must, other 
things equal, take precedence of knowledge that is 
of quasi-intrinsic or conventional worth. 

One further preliminary. Acquirement of every 
Disciplinary kind has two values — value as knowledge 
value. anc [ ya i ue as discipline. Besides its use 

for guidance in conduct, the acquisition of each 
order of facts has also its use as mental exercise, and 
its effects as a preparative for complete living have 
to be considered under both these heads. 

These, then, are the general ideas with which we 




FOR SELF-PRESERVATION 29 

must set out in discussing a curriculum : — Life as 
divided into several kinds of activity of General 

, t basis of 

successively decreasing importance ; the estimate, 
worth of each order of facts as regulating these sev- 
eral kinds of activity, intrinsically, quasi-intrinsic- 
ally, and conventionally ; and their regulative in- 
fluences estimated both as knowledge and discipline. 

A. KNOWLEDGE FOR GUIDANCE 

I. S elf-Preservation 

Happily, that all-important part of education 
which goes to secure direct self-preserva- seif-preser- 
tion, is in great part already provided instinct, 
for. Too momentous to be left to our blundering, 
Nature takes it into her own hands. While yet in 
its nurse's arms, the infant, by hiding its face and 
crying at the sight of a stranger, shows the dawning 
instinct to attain safety by flying from that which is 
unknown and may be dangerous ; and when it can 
walk, the terror it manifests if an unfamiliar clog 
comes near, or the screams with which it runs to its 
mother after any startling sight or sound, shows 
this instinct further developed. 

Moreover, knowledge subserving direct self-preser- 
vation is that which it is chiefly busied in acquiring 
from hour to hour. How to balance its body ; how 
to control its movements so as to avoid collisions ; 
what objects are hard, and will hurt if struck ; what 



30 THE KNOWLEDGE OF MOST WORTH 

objects are heavy, and injure if they fall on the 
limbs ; which things will bear the weight of the 
body, and which not ; the pains inflicted by fire, by 
missiles, by sharp instruments — these, and various 
other pieces of information needful for the avoidance 
of death or accident it is ever learning. And when, 
a few years later, the energies go out in running, 
climbing, and jumping, in games of strength and 
games of skill, we see in all these actions by which 
the muscles are developed, the perceptions sharp- 
ened, and the judgment quickened, a preparation for 
the safe conduct of the body among surrounding ob- 
jects and movements, and for meeting those greater 
dangers that occasionally occur in the lives of all. 

Being thus, as we say, so well cared for by Nature, 
this fundamental education needs comparatively 
little care from us. What we are chiefly called upon 
to see, is, that there shall be free scope for gaining 
this experience, and receiving this discipline, that 
there shall be no such thwarting of Xature as that 
hj which stupid schoolmistresses commonly prevent 
the girls in their charge from the spontaneous phy- 
sical activities they would indulge in, and so render 
them comparative^ incapable of taking care of 
themselves in circumstances of peril. 

This, however, is by no means all that is compre- 
Hygienic hended in the education that prepares for 
important. direct self-preservation. Besides guarding 
the body against mechanical damage or destruction, 




FOR SELF-PRESERVATION 31 

it has to be guarded against injury from other 
causes — against the disease and death thai; follow 
breaches of physiologic law. For complete living it 
is necessary, not only that sudden annihilations of 
life shall be warded off, but also that there shall be 
escaped the incapacities and the slow annihilation 
which unwise habits entail. As, without health 
and energy, the industrial, the parental, the social, 
and all other activities become more or less impos- 
sible, it is clear that this secondary kind of direct 
self-preservation is only less important than the 
primary kind, and that knowledge tending to secure 
it should rank very high. 

It is true that here, too, guidance is in some meas- 
ure ready supplied. By our various physical sen- 
sations and desires Nature has insured a tolerable 
conformity to the chief requirements. Fortunately 
for us, want of food,' great heat, extreme cold, 
produce promptings too peremptory to be disre- 
garded. And would men habitually obey these and 
all like promptings when less strong, comparatively 
few evils would arise. If fatigue of body or brain 
were in every case followed by desistance ; if the 
oppression produced by a close atmosphere always 
led to ventilation ; if there were no eating without 
hunger, or drinking without thirst ; then would the 
system be but seldom out of working order. But 
so profound an ignorance is there of the laws of life 
that men do not even know that their sensations are 



32 THE KNOWLEDGE OF MOST WORTH 

their natural guides, and (when not rendered morbid 
by long-continued disobedience) their trustworthy 
guides. So that though, to speak teleologically, 
Nature has provided efficient safeguards to health, 
lack of knowledge makes them in a great measure 
useless. 

If any one doubts the importance of an acquaint- 
vigorous ance with the fundamental principles of 

health excep- I". . 

tionai. physiology as a means to complete living, 

let him look around and see how many men and 
women he can find in middle or later life who are 
thoroughly well. Occasionally only do we meet 
with an example of vigorous health continued to 
old age ; hourly do we meet with examples of acute 
disorder, chronic ailment, general debility, prema- 
ture decrepitude. Scarcely is there one to whom 
you put the question, who has not, in the course of 
his life, brought upon himself illnesses which a little 
information would have saved him from. 

Here is a case of heart disease consequent on a 
rheumatic fever that followed reckless exposure. 
There is a case of eyes spoiled for life by overstudy. 
Yesterday the account was of one whose long-endur- 
ing lameness was brought on by continuing, in spite 
of the pain, to use a knee after it had been slightly 
injured. And to-day we are told of another who 
has had to lie by for years because he did not know 
that the palpitation he suffered under resulted from 
overtaxed brain. Now we hear of an irremediable 



FOR SELF-PRESERVATION 33 

injury that followed some silly feat of strength, and, 
again, of a constitution that has never recovered 
from the effects of excessive work needlessly under- 
taken, while on all sides we see the perpetual minor 
ailments which accompany feebleness. 

Not to dwell on the natural pain, the weariness, 
the gloom, the waste of time and money thus en- 
tailed, only consider how greatly ill-health hinders 
the discharge of all duties — makes business often 
impossible, and alwaj^s more difficult ; produces an 
irritability fatal to the right management of chil- 
dren ; puts the functions of citizenship out of the 
question, and makes amusement a bore. Is it not 
clear that the physical sins — partly our forefathers' 
and partly our own — which produce this ill-health, 
deduct more from complete living than anything 
else ? and to a great extent make life a failure and 
a burden instead of a benefaction and a pleasure ? 

To all which add the fact, that life, besides being 
thus immensely deteriorated, is also cut Half of life 
short. It is not true, as we commonly away, 
suppose, that a disorder or disease from which we 
have recovered leaves us as before. No disturbance 
of the normal course of the functions can pass away 
and leave things exactly as they w T ere. In all cases 
a permanent damage is done — not immediately ap- 
preciable, it may be, but still there, and, along with 
other such items which Nature in her strict account- 
keeping never drops, it will tell against us to the 



34 THE KNOWLEDGE OF MOST WORTH 

inevitable shortening of our days. Through the 
accumulation of small injuries it is that constitutions 
are commonly undermined and break down long be- 
fore their time. And if we call to mind how far the 
average duration of life falls below the possible 
duration, we see how immense is the loss. When, to 
the numerous partial deductions which bad health en- 
tails, we add this great final deduction, it results that 
ordinarily one-half of life is thrown away. - 

Hence, knowledge which subserves direct self- 
Physioiogy preservation by preventing this loss of 
aii-essentmi. i iea ith i s of primary importance. We do 
not contend that possession of such knowledge would 
by any means wholly remedy the evil. For it is 
clear that in our present phase of civilization men's 
necessities often compel them to transgress. And it 
is further clear that, even in the absence of such 
compulsion, their inclinations would frequently lead 
them, spite of their knowledge, to sacrifice future 
good to present gratification. But we do contend 
that the right knowledge impressed in the right way 
would effect much ; and we further contend that, 
as the laws of health must be recognized before they 
can be fully conformed to, the imparting of such 
knowledge must precede a more rational living — 
come when that may. We infer that as vigorous 
health and its accompanying high spirits are larger 
elements of hajypiness than any other things what- 
ever? the teaching how to maintain them is a teach- 






FOR SELF-MAINTENANCE 35 

ing that yields in moment to no other whatever. 
And therefore we assert that snch a course of physi- 
ology as is needful for the comprehension of its 
general truths, and their bearings on daily conduct, 
is an all-essential part of a rational education. 

Strange that the assertion should need making ! 
Stranger still that it should need defending ! Yet 
are there not a few by whom such a proposition will 
be received with something approaching to derision. 
Men who would blush if caught saying Iphigenia 
instead of Iphigenia, or would resent as an insult 
any imputation of ignorance respecting the fabled 
labors of a fabled demi-god, show not the slightest 
shame in confessing that they do not know where 
the Eustachian tubes are, what are the actions of 
the spinal cord, what is the normal rate of pulsation, 
or how the lungs are inflated. While anxious that 
their sons should be well up in the superstitions of 
two thousand years ago, they care not that they 
should be taught anything about the structure and 
functions of their own bodies— nay, even wish them 
not to be so taught. So overwhelming is the 
influence of established routine ! So terribly in our 
education does the ornamental override the useful ! 

II. Self-Maintenance 
"We need not insist on the value of that knowledge 
which aids indirect self-preservation by Thebusiness 
facilitating the gaining of a livelihood. of llfe> 
This is admitted by all, and, indeed, by the mass is 



36 THE KNOWLEDGE OF MOST WORTH 

perhaps too exclusively regarded as the end of edu- 
cation, But while every one is ready to endorse the 
abstract proposition that instruction fitting youths 
for the business of life is of high importance, or even 
to consider it of supreme importance, yet scarcely 
any inquire what instruction will so fit them. It is 
true that reading, writing, and arithmetic are taught 
with an intelligent appreciation of their uses, but 
when we have said this we have said nearly all. 
While the great bulk of what else is acquired has no 
bearing on the industrial activities, an immensity of 
information that has a direct bearing on the indus- 
' trial activities is entirely passed over. 

For, leaving out only some very small classes, 

Dependent what are a11 meu employed in? They 
on science. are em p]_ y e( j j n the production, prepara- 
tion, and distribution of commodities. And on what 
does efficiency in the production, preparation, and 
distribution of commodities depend ? It depends on 
the use of methods fitted to the respective natures of 
these commodities ; it depends on an adequate 
knowledge of their physical, chemical, or vital 
properties, as the case may be ; that is, it depends 
on Science. This order of knowledge, which is in 
great part ignored in our school courses, is the order 
of knowledge underlying the right performance of 
all those processes by which civilized life is made 
possible. Undeniable as is this truth, and thrust 
upon us as it is at every turn, there seems to be no 



FOR SELF-MAINTENANCE 37 

living consciousness of it : its very familiarity makes 
it unregarded. To give due weight to our argu- 
ment we must, therefore, realize this truth to the 
reader by a rapid review of the facts. 

For all the higher arts of construction some ac- 
quaintance with Mathematics is inclis- 

Mathematics. 

pensable. Ihe village carpenter, who, 
lacking rational instruction, lays out his work by 
empirical rules learnt in his apprenticeship, equally 
with the builder of a Britannia Bridge, makes hourly 
reference to the laws of quantitative relations. The 
surveyor on whose survey the land is purchased ; 
the architect in designing a mansion to be built on 
it ; the builder in preparing his estimates ; his fore- 
man in laying out the foundations ; the masons in 
cutting the stones, and the various artisans who put 
up the fittings, are all guided by geometrical truths. 
Railway-making is regulated from beginning to end 
by mathematics ; alike in the preparation of plans 
and sections ; in staking out the line ; in the men- 
suration of cuttings and embankments ; in the de- 
signing, estimating, and building of bridges, culverts, 
viaducts, tunnels, stations. And similarly with the 
harbors, docks, piers, and various engineering and 
architectural works that fringe the coasts and over- 
spread the face of the country, as well as the mines 
that run underneath it. 

Out of geometry, too, as applied to astronomy, 
the art of navigation has grown ; and so, by this 



38 THE KNOWLEDGE OF MOST WORTH 

science, has been made possible that enormous for- 
eign commerce which supports a large part of our 
population, and supplies us with many necessaries 
and most of our luxuries. And now-a-days even the 
farmer, for the correct laying out of his drains, has re- 
course to the level — that is, to geometrical principles. 
When from those divisions of mathematics which 
Machine is c ^ ea ^ w ^h s P ace an d number, some small 
tneOTemsfa 8,1 smattering of which is given in schools, 
operation. w@ j. um ^ ^^ t] ier division which deals 

with force, of which even a smattering is scarcely 
ever given, we meet with another large class of 
activities which this science presides over. On the 
application of rational mechanics depends the suc- 
cess of nearly all modern manufacture. The prop- 
erties of the lever, the wheel and axle, etc., are 
involved in every machine — every machine is a 
solidified mechanical theorem, and to machinery in 
these times we owe nearly all production. 

Trace the history of the breakfast-roll. The soil 
out of which it came was drained with machine 
made tiles ; the surface was turned over by a ma- 
chine ; the seed was put in by a machine ; the 
wheat was reaped, thrashed, and winnowed by 
machines ; by machinery it was ground and bolted ; 
and, had the flour been sent to Gosport, it might 
have been made into biscuits by a machine. 

Look around the room in which you sit. If modern, 
probably the bricks in its walls were machine-made ; 



FOR SELF-MAINTENANCE 39 

by machinery the flooring was sawn and planed, the 
mantel-shelf sawn and polished ; the paper-hangings 
made and printed ; the veneer on the table, the 
turned legs of the chairs, the carpet, the curtains, are 
all products of machinery. And your clothing — 
plain, figured, or printed — is it not wholly woven, 
nay, perhaps even sewed, by machinery ? And the 
volume you are reading — are not its leaves fabricated 
by one machine and covered with these words by an- 
other ? Add to which that for the means of distribu- 
tion over both land and sea, we are similarly indebted. 

And then let it be remembered that according as 
the principles of mechanics are well or ill used to 
these ends, comes success or failure — individual and 
national. The engineer who misapplies his formula 
for the strength of materials, builds a bridge that 
breaks down. The manufacturer whose apparatus is 
badly devised, cannot compete with another whose 
apparatus wastes less in friction and inertia. The 
ship-builder adhering to the old model is outsailed 
by one who builds on the mechanically-justified 
wave-line principle. And, as the ability of a nation 
to hold its own against other nations depends on 
the skilled activity of its units, we see that on such 
knowledge may turn the national fate. Judge then- 
the worth of mathematics. 

Pass next to Physics. Joined with mathematics, 
it has given us the steam-engine, which Physics. 
does the work of millions of laborers. That 



40 THE KNOWLEDGE OF MOST WORTH 

section of physics which deals with the laws of 
heat, has taught us how to economize fuel in our 
various industries ; how to increase the produce of 
our smelting furnaces by substituting the hot for the 
cold blast ; how to ventilate our mines ; how to pre- 
vent explosions by using the safety-lamp ; and, 
through the thermometer, how to regulate innumer- 
able processes. That division which has the phe- 
nomena of light for its subject, gives eyes to the old 
and the myopic ; aids through the microscope in 
detecting diseases and adulterations, and by im- 
proved lighthouses prevents shipwrecks. Researches 
in electricity and magnetism have saved incalculable 
life and property by the compass ; have subserved 
sundry arts by the electrotype ; and now, in the tel- 
egraph, have supplied us with the agency by which 
for the future mercantile transactions will be reg- 
ulated, political intercourse carried on, and per- 
haps national quarrels often avoided. While in the 
details of indoor life, from the improved kitchen- 
range up to the stereoscope on the drawing-room 
table, the applications of advanced physics underlie 
our comforts and gratifications. 

Still more numerous are the bearings of Chemistry 

on those activities by which men obtain 

the means of living. The bleacher, the 

dyer, the calico-printer, are severally occupied in 

processes that are well or ill done according as they 

do or do not conform to chemical laws. The 



FOR SELF-MAINTENANCE 41 

economical reduction from their ores of copper, tin, 
zinc, lead, silver, iron, are in a great measure ques- 
tions of chemistry. Sugar-refining, gas-making, 
soap-boiling, gunpowder manufacture, are opera- 
tions all partly chemical, as are likewise those 
which produce glass and porcelain. Whether the 
distiller's work stops at the alcoholic fermentation 
or passes into the acetous, is a chemical question on 
which hangs his profit or loss, and the brewer, if 
his business is very extensive, finds it pay to keep 
a chemist on his premises. 

Glance through a work on technology, and it be- 
comes at once apparent that there is now scarcely 
any process in the arts or manufactures over some 
part of which chemistry does not preside. And 
then, lastly, we come to the fact that in these times, 
agriculture, to be profitably carried on, must have 
like guidance. The analysis of manures and soils ; 
their adaptations to each other ; the use of gypsum 
or other substance for fixing ammonia ; the utiliza- 
tion of coprolites ; the production of artificial 
manures — all these are boons of chemistry which it 
behooves the farmer to acquaint himself with. Be 
it in the lucifer match, or in disinfected sewage, or in 
photographs — in bread made without fermentation, 
or perfumes extracted from refuse — we may perceive 
that chemistry affects all our industries, and that, by 
consequence, knowledge of it concerns every one who 
is directly or indirectly connected with our industries. 



42 THE KNOWLEDGE OF MOST WORTH 

And then the science of life — Biology : does not 
this, too, bear fundamentally upon these 
processes of indirect self-preservation? 
With what we ordinarily call manufactures, it has, 
indeed, little connection, but with the all-essential 
manufacture — that of food — it is inseparably con- 
nected. As agriculture must conform its methods 
to the phenomena of vegetal and animal life, it 
follows necessarily that the science of these phenom- 
ena is the rational basis of agriculture. Various 
biological truths have indeed been empirically es- 
tablished and acted upon by farmers while yet there 
has been no conception of them as science : such as 
that particular manures are suited to particular 
plants ; that crops of certain kinds unfit the soil for 
other crops ; that horses cannot do good work on 
poor food ; that such and such diseases of cattle and 
sheep are caused by such and such conditions. 
These, and the everyday knowledge which the agri- 
culturist gains by experience respecting the right 
management of plants and animals, constitute his 
stock of biological facts, on the largeness of which 
greatly depends his success. And as these biological 
facts, scanty, indefinite, rudimentary, though they 
are, aid him so essentially, judge what must be the 
value to him of such facts when they become posi- 
tive, definite, and exhaustive. 

Indeed, even now we may see the benefits that 
rational biology is conferring on him. The truth 



FOR SELF-MAINTENANCE 43 

that the production of animal heat implies waste of 
substance, and that, therefore, preventing loss of 
heat prevents the need for extra food — a purely 
theoretical conclusion — now guides the fattening of 
cattle ; it is found that by keeping cattle warm, 
fodder is saved. Similarly with respect to variety 
of food. The experiments of physiologists have 
shown that not only is change of diet beneficial, but 
that digestion is facilitated by a mixture of ingre- 
dients in each meal : both which truths are now 
influencing cattle-feeding. The discovery that a 
disorder known as "the staggers", of which many 
thousands of sheep have died annually, is caused by 
an entozoon which presses on the brain, and that if 
the creature is extracted through the softening place 
in the skull which marks its position, the sheep 
usually recovers, is another debt which agriculture 
owes to biology. When we observe the marked 
contrast between our farming and farming on the 
Continent, and remember that this contrast is mainly 
due to the far greater influence science has had 
upon farming here than there, and when we see 
how, daily, competition is making the adoption of 
scientific methods more general and necessary, we 
shall rightly infer that very soon agricultural suc- 
cess in England will be impossible without a 
competent knowledge of animal and vegetal 
physiology. 

Yet one more science we have to note as bearing 



44 THE KNOWLEDGE OF MOST WORTH 

directly on industrial success — the Science of Society. 
Without knowing it, men who daily look 
at the state of the money-market, glance 
over prices current, discuss the probable crops of 
corn, cotton, sugar, wool, silk, weigh the chances of 
war, and from all these data decide on their mer- 
cantile operations, are students of social science : 
empirical and blundering students it may be, but 
still students who gain the prizes or are plucked of 
their profits, according as they do or do not reach 
the right conclusion. Not only the manufacturer 
and the merchant must guide their transactions by 
calculations of supply and demand, based on numer- 
ous facts, and tacitly recognizing sundry general 
principles of social action, but even the retailer must 
do the like : his prosperity very greatly depending 
upon the correctness of his judgments respecting the 
future wholesale prices and the future rates of con- 
sumption. Manifestly, all who take part in the en- 
tangled commercial activities of a community are 
vitally interested in understanding the laws accord- 
ing to which those activities vary. 

Thus, to all such as are occupied in the produc- 
scientific *ion, exchange, or distribution of com- 
eJsentfaHo modifies, acquaintance with science in 
some of its departments is of fundamental 
importance. Whoever is immediately or remotely 
implicated in any form of industry (and few are 
not) has a direct interest in understanding some- 



FOR SELF-MAINTENANCE 45 

thing of the mathematical and chemical properties of 
things ; perhaps, also, has a direct interest in biology, 
and certainly has in sociology. Whether he does or 
does not succeed well in that indirect self-preserva- 
tion which we call getting a good livelihood, depends 
in a great degree on his knowledge of one or more 
of these sciences : not, it may be, a rational knowl- 
edge, but still a knowledge, though empirical. 

For what we call learning a business really im- 
plies learning the science involved in it, though not 
perhaps under the name of science. And hence a 
grounding in science is of great importance, both 
because it prepares for all this, and because rational 
knowledge has an immense superiority over em- 
pirical knowledge. 

Moreover, not only is it that scientific culture is 
requisite for each, that he may understand the how 
and the why of the things and processes with which he 
is concerned as maker or distributor, but it is often 
of much moment that he should understand the 
how and the why of various other things and pro- 
cesses. In this age of joint-stock undertakings, 
nearly every man above the laborer is interested as 
capitalist in some other occupation than his own, 
and, as thus interested, his profit or loss often de- 
pends on his knowledge of the sciences bearing 
on this other occupation. Here is a mine, in the 
sinking of which many shareholders ruined them- 
selves from not knowing that a certain fossil be- 



46 THE KNOWLEDGE OP MOST WORTH 

longed to the old red sand-stone, below which no 
coal is found. Not many years ago £20,000 was 
lost in the prosecution of a scheme for collecting the 
alcohol that distils from bread in baking : all of 
which would have been saved to the subscribers 
had the} r known that less than a hundredth part by 
weight of the flour is changed in fermentation. 
Numerous attempts have been made to construct 
electro-magnetic engines in the hope of superseding 
steam, but had those who supplied the moiiey un- 
derstood the general law of the correlation and 
equivalence of forces, they might have had better 
balances at their bankers. Daily are men induced 
to aid in carrying out inventions which a mere tyro 
in science could show to be futile. Scarcely a local- 
ity but has its history of fortunes thrown away over 
some impossible project. 

And if already the loss from want of science is so 
frequent and so great, still greater and more frequent 
will it be to those who hereafter lack science. Just 
as fast as productive processes become more scientific, 
which competition will inevitably make them do, 
and just as fast as joint-stock undertakings spread, 
which they certainly will, so fast must scientific 
knowledge grow necessary to every one. 

That which our school courses leave almost en- 
schoois have tirely out, we thus find to be that which 
formulas. most nearly concerns the business of life. 
All our industries would cease were it not for that 



FOR PARENTAL DUTIES 47 

information which men begin to acquire as they 
best may after their education is said to be finished. 
And were it not for this information, that has been 
from age to age accumulated and spread by un- 
official means, these industries would never have 
existed. > Had there been no teaching but such as is 
given in our public schools, England would now be 
what it was in feudal times. That increasing ac- 
quaintance with the laws of phenomena which has 
through successive ages enabled us to subjugate 
Nature to our needs, and in these days gives the 
common laborer comforts which a few centuries ago 
kings could not purchase, is scarcely in any degree 
owed to the appointed means of instructing our 
youth. The vital knowledge — that by which we 
have grown as a nation to what we are, and which 
now underlies our whole existence — is a knowledge 
that has got itself taught in nooks and corners ; 
while the ordained agencies for teaching have been 
mumbling little else but dead formulas. 

III. Parental Duties 

We come now to the third great division of human 
activities— a division for which no prep- no training 
aration whatever is made. If by some age. 
strange chance not a vestige of us descended to the 
remote future save a pile of our school-books or 
some college examination papers, we may imagine 
how puzzled an antiquary of the period would be 



48 THE KNOWLEDGE OF MOST WORTH" 

on finding in them no indication that the learners 
were ever likely to be parents. " This must have 
been the curriculum for their celibates," we may 
fancy him concluding. " I perceive here an elaborate 
preparation for many things ; especially for reading . 
the books of extinct nations and of co-existing na- 
tions (from which indeed it seems clear that these 
people had very little worth reading in their own 
tongue), but I find no reference whatever to the 
bringing up of children. They could not have been 
so absurd as to omit all training for this gravest of 
responsibilities. Evidently then, this was the school 
course of one of their monastic orders." 

Seriously, is it not an astonishing fact, that though 
on the treatment of offspring depend their lives or 
deaths, and their moral welfare or ruin, } r et not one 
word of instruction on the treatment of offspring is 
ever given to those who will hereafter be parents ? 
Is it not monstrous that the fate of a new generation 
should be left to the chances of unreasoning custom, 
impulse, fancy — -joined with the suggestions of 
ignorant nurses and the prejudiced counsel of grand- 
mothers? If a merchant commenced business 
without any knowledge of arithmetic and book- 
keeping, we should exclaim at his folly and look 
for disastrous consequences. Or if, before studying 
anatomy, a man set up as a surgical operator, we 
should wonder at his audacity and pity his patients. 
But that parents should begin the difficult task of 



FOR PARENTAL DUTIES 49 

rearing children without ever having given a 
thought to the principles — physical, moral or intel- 
lectual — which ought to guide them, excites neither 
surprise at the actors nor pity for their victims. 

To tens of thousands that are killed, add hun- 
dreds of thousands that survive with feeble physical 
constitutions, and millions that grow up from par- 
with constitutions not so strong as they ance. 
should be, and you will have some idea of the 
curse inflicted on their offspring by parents ignor- 
ant of the laws of life. - Do but consider for a 
moment that the regimen to which children are sub- 
ject is hourly telling upon them to their life-long 
injury or benefit — and that there are twenty ways 
of going wrong to one way of going right — and you 
will get some idea of the enormous mischief that is 
almost everywhere inflicted by the thoughtless, hap- 
hazard system in common use. 

Is it decided that a boy shall be clothed in some 
flimsy short dress and be allowed to go playing 
about with limbs reddened by cold ? The decision 
will tell on his whole future existence — either in ill- 
nesses, or in stunted growth, or in deficient energy, 
or in a maturity less vigorous than it ought to have 
been, and consequent hindrances to success and 
happiness. Are children doomed to a monotonous 
dietary, or a dietary that is deficient in nutritive- 
ness? Their ultimate physical power, and their 
efficiency as men and women, will inevitably be 



50 THE KNOWLEDGE OF MOST WORTH 

more or less diminished by it. Are they forbidden 
vociferous play, or (being too ill-clothed to bear ex- 
posure), are they kept in-doors in cold weather? 
They are certain to fall below that measure of health 
and strength to which they would else have attained. 

When sons and daughters grow up sickly and 
feeble, parents commonly regard the event as a mis- 
fortune — as a visitation of providence. Thinking 
after the prevalent chaotic fashion, they assume that 
these evils come without causes or that the causes 
are supernatural. Nothing of the kind. In some 
cases the causes are doubtless inherited, but in most 
cases foolish regulations are the causes. Very gen- 
erally parents themselves are responsible for all this 
pain, this debility, this depression, this misery. 
They have undertaken to control the lives of their 
offspring from hour to hour ; with cruel carelessness 
they have neglected to learn anything about these 
vital processes which they are unceasingly affecting 
by their commands and prohibitions ; in utter ignor- 
ance of the simplest physiologic laws, they have been 
year b} r year undermining the constitutions of their 
children, and have so inflicted disease and premature 
death, not only on them but on their descendants. 

Equally great are the ignorance and the consequent 

„ . . injury when we turn from physical train- 
Moral mis- o j l 

f-noiant m m S to moral training. Consider the 
mothers. young mother and her nursery legisla- 
tion. But a few years ago she was at school, 



E0R PARENTAL DUTIES 51 

where her memory was crammed with words, arid 
names, and dates, and her reflective faculties 
scarcely in the slightest degree exercised — where not 
one idea was given her respecting the methods of 
dealing with the o]3ening mind of childhood, and 
where her discipline did not in the least fit her for 
thinking out methods of her own. The intervening 
years have been passed in practising music, in 
fancy-work, in novel-reading, and in party-going : 
no thought having yet been given to the grave re- 
sponsibilities of maternity ; and scarcely any of that 
solid intellectual culture obtained which would be 
some preparation for such responsibilities. 

And now see her with an unfolding human char- 
acter committed to her charge — see her profoundly 
ignorant of the phenomena with which she has to 
deal, undertaking to do that which can be done but 
imperfectly even with the aid of the profoundest 
knowledge. She knows nothing about the nature 
of the emotions, their order of evolution, their func- 
tions, or where use ends and abuse begins. She is 
under the impression that some of the feelings are 
wholly bad, which is not true of any one of them ; 
and that others are good, however far they may be 
carried, which is also not true of any one of them. 
And then, ignorant as she is of the structure she has 
to deal with, she is equally ignorant of the effects 
that will be produced on it by this or that treatment. 

What can be more inevitable than the disastrous 



52 THE KNOWLEDGE OF MOST WORTH 

results we see hourly arising ? Lacking knowledge 
of mental phenomena, with their causes and conse- 
quences, her interference is frequently more mis- 
chievous than absolute passivity would have been. 
This and that kind of action, which are quite 
normal and beneficial, she perpetually thwarts, and 
so diminishes the child's happiness and profit, in- 
jures its temper and her own, and produces estrange- 
ment. Deeds which she thinks it desirable to 
encourage, she gets performed by threats and bribes, 
or by exciting a desire for applause ; considering 
little what the inward motive may be, so long as 
the outward conduct conforms, and thus cultivating 
hypocrisy, and fear, and selfishness, in place of good 
feeling. While insisting on truthfulness, she con- 
stantly sets an example of untruth by threatening 
penalties which she does not inflict. While incul- 
cating self-control, she hourly visits on her little 
ones angry scoldings for acts undeserving of 
them. 

She has not the remotest idea that in the nursery, 
as in the world, that alone is the truly salutary dis- 
cipline which visits on all conduct, good and bad, 
the natural consequences — the consequences, pleas- 
urable or painful, which in the nature of things 
such conduct tends to bring. Being thus without 
theoretic guidance, and quite incapable of guiding 
herself by tracing the mental processes going on in 
her children, her rule is impulsive, inconsistent, 






FOR PARENTAL DUTIES 53 

mischievous, often, in the highest degree ; and 
would indeed be generally ruinous, were it not that 
the overwhelming tendency of the growing mind to 
assume the moral type of the race, usually subor- 
dinates all minor influences. 

And then the culture of the intellect — is not this, 
too, mismanaged in a similar manner? Illte ii e ctuai 
Grant that the phenomena of intelligence mischief - 
conform to laws ; grant that the evolution of intel- 
ligence in a child also conforms to laws ; and it 
follows inevitably that education can be rightly 
guided only by a knowledge of these laws. To 
suppose that you can properly regulate this process 
of forming and accumulating ideas without under- 
standing the nature of the process, is absurd. 

How widely, then, must teaching as it is, differ 
from teaching as it should be, when Books ffiven 
hardly any parents, and but few teach- toosoon - 
ers, know anything about psychology. As might 
be expected, the system is grievously at fault, alike 
in matter and in manner. While the right class of 
facts is withheld, the wrong class is forcibly admin- 
istered in the wrong way and in the wrong order. 
Under that common limited idea of education which 
confines it to knowledge gained from books, parents 
thrust primers into the hands of their little ones 
years too soon, to their injury. Not recognizing the 
truth that the function of books is supplementary — 
that they form an indirect means to knowledge 



54 THE KNOWLEDGE OF MOST WORTH 

when direct means fail — a means of seeing through 
other men what you cannot see for yourself — teach- 
ers are eager to give second-hand facts in place of 
first-hand facts. 

Not perceiving the enormous value of that spon- 
observation taneous education which goes on in early 
checked. years — not perceiving that a child's rest- 
less observation, instead of being ignored or checked, 
should be diligently ministered to, and made as 
accurate and complete as possible — they insist on 
occupying its eyes and thoughts with things that 
are, for the time being, incomprehensible and re- 
pugnant. Possessed by a superstition which wor- 
ships the symbols of knowledge instead of the 
knowledge itself, they do not see that only when his 
acquaintance with the objects and processes of the 
household, the streets, and the fields, is becoming 
tolerably exhaustive — only then should a child be 
introduced to the new sources of information which 
books supply : and this, not only because immediate 
cognition is of far greater value than mediate cog- 
nition, but also, because the words contained in 
books can be rightly interpreted into ideas only in 
proportion to the antecedent experience of things. 

Observe next, that this formal instruction, far too 
Abstract be- soon commenced, is carried on with but 
fore concrete. little re f erence to the laws of mental de- 
velopment. Intellectual progress is of necessity 
from the concrete to the abstract. But regardless 



FOR PARENTAL DUTIES 55 

of this, highly abstract studies, such as grammar, 
which should come quite late, are begun quite early. 
Political geography, dead and uninteresting to a 
child, and which should be an appendage of so- 
ciological studies, is commenced betimes ; while 
physical geography, comprehensible and compara- 
tively attractive to a child, is in great part passed 
over. Nearly every subject dealt with is arranged 
in abnormal order : definitions, and rules, and prin- 
ciples being put first, instead of being disclosed, as 
they are in the order of nature, through the study 
of cases. 

And then, pervading the whole, is the vicious 
S} r stem of rote learning — a system of sac- Rote . learn _ 
rificing the spirit to the letter. See the m ^ 
results. What with perceptions unnaturally dulled 
by early thwarting, and a coerced attention to books 
— what with the mental confusion produced by 
teaching subjects before they can be understood, and 
in each of them giving generalizations before the 
facts of which they are the generalizations — what 
with making the pupil a mere passive recipient of 
others' ideas, and not in the least leading him to be 
an active inquirer or self-instructor — and what with 
taxing the faculties to excess — there are very few 
minds that become as efficient as they might be. 
Examinations being once passed, books are laid 
aside ; the greater part of what has been acquired, 
being unorganized, soon drops out of recollection ; 



56 THE KNOWLEDGE OF MOST WORTH 

what remains is mostly inert — the art of applying 
knowledge not having been cultivated — and there 
is but little power either of accurate observation or 
independent thinking. To all which add, that 
while much of the information gained is of relatively 
small value, an immense mass of information of 
transcendent value is entirely passed over. 

Thus we find the facts to be such as might have 
parents been inferred d priori. The training of 

t!Sned b for children — physical, moral, and intellec- 
their duties. tual _ is dreadfully defective. And in 
great measure it is so because parents are devoid of 
that knowledge by which this training can alone be 
rightly guided. What is to be expected when one 
of the most intricate of problems is undertaken by 
those who have given scarcely a thought to the 
principles on which its solution depends? For 
shoe-making or house-building, for the management 
of a ship or a locomotive-engine, a long apprentice- 
ship is needful. Is it, then, that the unfolding of a 
human being in body and mind is so comparatively 
simple a process, that any one may superintend and 
regulate it with no preparation whatever? If not 
— if the process is with one exception more complex 
than any in Nature, and the task of ministering 
to it one of surpassing difficulty, is it not madness 
to make no provision for such a task ? Better sac- 
rifice accomplishments than omit this all-essential 
instruction. 



FOR PARENTAL DUTIES 57 

When a father, acting on false dogmas adopted 
without examination, has alienated his sons, driven 
them into rebellion by his harsh treatment, ruined 
them, and made himself miserable, he might reflect 
that the study of ethology would have been worth 
pursuing, even at the cost of knowing nothing about 
iEschylus. When a mother is mourning over a 
first-born that has sunk under the sequelae of scarlet- 
fever — when perhaps a candid medical man has 
confirmed her suspicion that her child would have 
recovered had not its system been enfeebled by over- 
study — when she is prostrate under the pangs of 
combined grief and remorse — it is but a small con- 
solation that she can read Dante in the original. 

Thus we see that for regulating the third great 
division of human activities, a knowledge should know 
of the laws of life is the one thing need- gg*g«7 
ful. Some acquaintance with the first cholo ^ y - 
principles of physiology and the elementary truths 
of psychology is indispensable for the right bringing 
up of children. We doubt not that this assertion 
will by many be read with a smile. That parents 
in general should be expected to acquire a knowl- 
edge of subjects so abstruse, will seem to them an 
absurdity. And if we proposed that an exhaustive 
knowledge of these subjects should be obtained by 
all fathers and mothers, the absurdity would indeed 
be glaring enough. But we do not. General prin- 
ciples only, accompanied by such illustrations as 



58 THE KNOWLEDGE OF MOST WORTH 

may be needed to make them understood, would 
suffice. And these might be readily taught — if not 
rationally, then dogmatically. 

Be this as it may, however, here are the indis- 
putable facts : — that the development of children in 
mind and body rigorously obeys certain laws ; that 
unless these laws are in some degree conformed to 
by parents, death is inevitable ; that unless they are 
in a great degree conformed to, there must result 
serious physical and mental defects ; and that only 
when they are completely conformed to, can a per- 
fect maturity be reached. Judge, then, whether all 
who may one day be parents should not strive with 
some anxiety to learn what these laws are. 

IV. Good Citizenship 

From the parental functions let us pass now to 
the functions of the citizen. We have here to in- 
quire what knowledge best fits a man for the dis- 
charge of these functions. It cannot be alleged, as 
in the last case, that the need for knowledge fitting 
him for these functions is wholly overlooked ; for 
our school courses contain certain studies which, 
nominally at least, bear upon political and social 
duties. Of these the only one that occupies a prom- 
inent place jt$ History. 

But, as already more than once hinted, the his- 
Historyas toric information commonly given is 
valueless. almost valueless for purposes of guidance. 
Scarcely any of the facts set down in our school- 



FOR GOOD CITIZENSHIP 59 

histories, and very few even of those contained in 
the more elaborate works written for adults, give 
any clue to the right principles of political action. 
The biographies of monarchs (and our children 
commonly learn little else) throw scarcely any light 
upon the science of society. Familiarity with court 
intrigues, plots, usurpations, or the like, and with 
all the personalities accompanying them, aids very 
little in elucidating the principles on which national 
welfare depends. 

We read of some squabble for power, that it led 
to a pitched battle ; that such and such were the 
names of the generals and their leading subordi- 
nates ; that they had each so many thousand in- 
fantry and cavalry, and so many cannon ; that they 
arranged their forces in this and that order ; that 
they manoeuvred, attacked, and fell back in certain 
ways ; that at this part of the day such disasters 
were sustained, and at that such advantages gained ; 
that in one particular movement some leading officer 
fell, while in another a certain regiment was dec- 
imated ; that after all the changing fortunes of the 
fight, the victory was gained by this or that army ; 
and that so many were killed and wounded on each 
side, and so many captured by the conquerors. 
And now, out of the accumulated details which 
make up the narrative, say which it is that helps 
you in deciding on your conduct as a citizen. Sup- 
posing even that you had diligently read, not only 



60 THE KNOWLEDGE OF MOST WORTH 

"The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World", but 
accounts of all other battles that history mentions ; 
how much more judicious would your vote be at the 
next election ? 

" But these are facts — interesting facts," you say. 
unorganiz- Without doubt they are facts (such, at 
able facts, leag^ as are not wholly or partially fic- 
tions), and to many they may be interesting facts. 
But this by no means implies that they are valuable. 
Factitious or morbid opinion often gives seeming- 
value to things that have scarcely any. A tulipo- 
maniac will not part with a choice bulb for its 
weight in gold. To another man an ugly j)iece of 
cracked old china seems his most desirable j)osses- 
sion. And there are those who give high prices for 
the relics of celebrated murderers. Will it be con- 
tended that these tastes are any measures of value 
in the things that gratify them ? If not, then it 
must be admitted that the liking felt for certain 
classes of historical facts is no proof of their worth ; 
and that we must test their worth as Ave test the 
worth of other facts, by asking to what uses they are 
applicable. 

Were some one to tell you that your neighbor's 
cat kittened yesterday, you would say the informa- 
tion was worthless. Fact though it might be, you 
would say it was an utterly useless fact — a fact that 
could in no way influence your actions in life — a 
fact that would not help you in learning how to live 



FOR GOOD CITIZENSHIP 61 

completely. Well, apply the same test to the great 
mass of historical facts, and you will get the same 
result. They are facts from which no conclusions 
can be drawn — unorganizable facts ; and therefore 
facts which can be of no service in establishing prin- 
ciples of conduct, which is the chief use of facts. 
Read them, if you like, for amusement, but do not 
natter yourself they are instructive. 

That which constitutes History, properly so called, 
is in great part omitted from works on Natural his- 
the subject. Only of late years have his- society, 
torians commenced giving us, in any considerable 
quantity, the truly valuable information. As in past 
ages the king was every thing and the people nothing, 
so, in past histories the doings of the king fill the en- 
tire picture, to which the national life forms but an 
obscure background ; while only now, when the wel- 
fare of nations rather than of rulers is becoming the 
dominant idea, are historians beginning to occupy 
themselves with the phenomena of social progress. 

That which it really concerns us to know is the 
natural history of society. We want all facts which 
help us to understand how a nation has grown and 
organized itself. Among these, let us of course have 
an account of its government, with as little as may 
be of gossip about the men who officered it, and as 
much as possible about the structure, principles, 
methods, prejudices, corruptions, etc., which it ex- 
hibited : and let this account not only include the 



62 THE KNOWLEDGE OF MOST WORTH 

nature and actions of the central government, but 
also those of local governments, down to their 
minutest ramifications. Let us of course also have 
a parallel description of the ecclesiastical govern- 
ment — its organization, its conduct, its power, its 
relations to the State : and accompanying this, the 
ceremonial, creed, and religious ideas — not only 
those nominally believed, but those really believed 
and acted upon. Let us at the same time be in- 
formed of the control exercised by class over class, 
as displayed in all social observances — in titles, sal- 
utations, and forms of address. Let us know, too, 
what were all the other customs which regulated 
the popular life out of doors and in-doors : including 
those which concern the relations of the sexes, and 
the relations of parents to children. The supersti- 
tions, also, from the more important myths down to 
the charms in common use, should be indicated. 

Next should come a delineation of the industrial 
system, showing to what extent the division of labor 
was carried ; how trades were regulated, whether 
by caste, guilds, or otherwise ; what was the connec- 
tion between employers and employed ; what were 
the agencies for distributing commodities ; what 
were the means of communication ; what was the 
circulating medium. Accompanying all which 
should come an account of the industrial arts tech- 
nically considered, stating the processes in use, and 
the quality of the products. 



FOR GOOD CITIZENSHIP 63 

Further, the intellectual condition of the nation 
in its various grades should be depicted, not only 
with respect to the kind and amount of education, 
but with respect to the progress made in science, 
and the prevailing manner of thinking. The degree 
of aesthetic culture, as displayed in architecture, 
sculpture, painting, dress, music, poetry, and fiction, 
should be described. Nor should there be omitted 
a sketch of the daily lives of the people — their food, 
their homes, and their amusements. And lastly, to 
connect the whole, should be exhibited the morals, 
theoretical and practical, of all classes, as indicated 
in their laws, habits, proverbs, deeds. 

All these facts, given with as much brevity as 
consists with clearness and accuracy, should be so 
grouped and arranged that they may be compre- 
hended in their ensemble, and thus may be con- 
templated as mutually dependent parts of one great 
whole. The aim should be so to present them that 
we may readily trace the consensus subsisting among 
them, with the view of learning what social 
phenomena co-exist with what others. And then 
the corresponding delineations of succeeding ages 
should be so managed as to show us, as clearly as 
may be, how each belief, institution, custom, and 
arrangement was modified ; and how the consensus 
of preceding structures and functions was developed 
into the consensus of succeeding ones. 

Such alone is the kind of information respecting 



64 THE KNOWLEDGE OF MOST WORTH 

past times, which can be of service of the citizen for 
the regulation of his conduct. The only history 
that is of practical value, is what may be called 
Descriptive Sociology. And the highest office which 
the historian can discharge, is that of so narrating 
the lives of nations as to furnish materials for a 
Comparative Sociology, and for the subsequent de- 
termination of the ultimate laws to which social 
j)henomena conform. 

But now mark that even supposing an adequate 
stock of this truly valuable historical science 
knowledge has been acquired, it is of history. 
comparatively little use without the key. And the 
key is to be found only in Science. Without an ac- 
quaintance with the general truths of biology and 
psychology, rational interpretation of social phenom- 
ena is impossible. Only in proportion as men ob- 
tain a certain rude, empirical knowledge of human 
nature, are they enabled to understand even the 
simplest facts of social life : as, for instance, the re- 
lation between supply and demand. And if not 
even the most elementary truths of sociology can be 
reached until some knowledge is obtained of how 
men generally think, feel, and act under given cir- 
cumstances, then it is manifest that there can be 
nothing like a wide comprehension of sociology, un- 
less through a competent knowledge of man in all 
his faculties, bodily and mental. 

Consider the matter in the abstract, and this con- 



FOR GOOD CITIZENSHIP 65 

elusion is self-evident. Thus : — Society is made up 
of individuals ; all that is done in society is done by 
the combined actions of individuals, and therefore, 
in individual actions only can be found the solutions 
of social phenomena. But the actions of individuals 
depends on the laws of their natures, and their ac- 
tions cannot be understood until these laws are un- 
derstood. These laws, however, when reduced to 
their simplest expression, are found to depend on 
the laws of body and mind in general. Hence it 
necessarily follows, that biology and psychology are 
indispensable as interpreters of sociology. Or, to 
state the conclusions still more simply : — all social 
phenomena are phenomena of life — are the most 
complex manifestations of life — are ultimately de- 
pendent on the laws of life — and can be under- 
stood only when the laws of life are understood. 

Thus, then, we see that for the regulation of this 
fourth division of human activities, we are, as before, 
dependent on Science. Of the knowledge commonly 
imparted in educational courses, very little is of any 
service in guiding a man in his conduct as a citizen. 
Only a small part of the history he reads is of prac- 
tical value, and of this small part he is not prepared 
to make proper use. He commonly lacks not only 
the materials for, but the very conception of, de- 
scriptive sociology ; and he also lacks that knowl- 
edge of the organic sciences, without which even 
descriptive sociology can give him but little aid. 



66 THE KNOWLEDGE OP MOST WORTH 

V. The Refinements of Life 

And now we come to that remaining division of 
The finer human life which includes the relaxa- 
enjoyments. ^ions, pleasures, and amusements filling 
leisure hours. After considering what training best 
fits for self-preservation, for the obtainment of sus- 
tenance, for the discharge of parental duties, and 
for the regulation of social and political conduct, we 
have now to consider what training best fits for 
the miscellaneous ends not included in these — for the 
enjoyments of Nature, of Literature, and of the Fine 
Arts, in all their forms. 

Postponing them as we do to things that bear 
Their im- more vitally upon human welfare, and 
portance. bringing everything, as we have, to the 
test of actual value, it will perhaps be inferred that 
we are inclined to slight these less essential things. 
No greater mistake could be made, however. We 
yield to none in the value we attach to sesthetic cul- 
ture and its pleasures. Without painting, sculpture, 
music, poetry, and the emotions produced by natural 
beauty of every kind, life would lose half its charm. 
So far from thinking that the training and gratifi- 
cation of the tastes are unimportant, we believe the 
time will come when they will occupy a much 
larger share of human life than now. When the 
forces of Nature have been fully conquered to man's 
use — when the means of production have been 



FOR ^ESTHETIC CULTURE 67 

brought to perfection — when labor has been econ- 
omized to the highest degree — when education has 
been so systematized that a preparation for the more 
essential activities may be made with comparative 
rapidity — and when, consequently, there is a great 
increase of spare time ; then will the poetry, both 
of Art and Nature, rightly fill a large space in the 
minds of all. 

But it is one thing to admit that aesthetic culture 
is in a high degree conducive to human The root 

T ' ■ '• • i t .-,. . t before the 

happiness, and another thing to admit blossom. 
that it is a fundamental requisite to human happi- 
ness. However important it may be, it must yield 
precedence to those kinds of culture which bear 
more directly upon the duties of life. As before 
hinted, literature and the fine arts are made possible 
by those activities which make individual and social 
life possible ; and manifestly that which is made 
possible, must be postponed to that which makes it 
possible. A florist cultivates a plant for the sake of 
its flower, and regards the roots and leaves as of 
value, chiefly because they are instrumental in pro- 
ducing the flower. But while, as an ultimate 
product, the flower is the thing to which everything 
else is subordinate, the florist very well knows that 
the root and leaves are intrinsically of greater im- 
portance, because on them the evolution of the 
flower depends. He bestows every care in rearing 
a healthy plant, and knows it would be folly if, in 



68 THE KNOWLEDGE OF MOST WORTH 

his anxiety to obtain the flower, he were to neglect 
the plant. 

Similarly in the case before us. Architecture, 
sculpture, painting, music, poetry, etc., may be truly 
called the efflorescence of civilized life. But even 
supposing them to be of such transcendent worth as 
to subordinate the civilized life out of which they 
grow (which can hardly be asserted), it will still be 
admitted that the production of a healthy civilized 
life must be the first consideration, and that the 
knowledge conducing to this must occupy the high- 
est place. 

And here we see most distinctly the vice of our 
Mistake of educational system. It neglects the plant 
education. for the sake of the flower. In anxiety for 
elegance, it forgets substance. While it gives no 
knowledge conducive to self-preservation — while of 
knowledge that facilitates gaining a livelihood it 
gives but the rudiments, and leaves the greater part 
to be picked up any how in after life — while for the 
discharge of parental functions it makes not the 
slightest provision — and while for the duties of 
citizenship it prepares by imparting a mass of facts, 
most of which are irrelevant, and the rest without a 
key, it is diligent in teaching every thing that adds 
to refinement, polish, eclat. 

However fully we may admit that extensive ac- 
quaintance with modern languages is a valuable 
accomplishment, which, through reading, conversa- 



FOR AESTHETIC CULTURE 69 

tion, and travel, aids in giving a certain finish, it 
by no means follows that this result is rightly pur- 
chased at the cost of that vitally important knowl- 
edge sacrificed to it. Supposing it true that classical 
education conduces to elegance and correctness of 
style, it cannot be said that elegance and correct- 
ness of style are comparable in importance to a 
familiarity with the principles that should guide 
the rearing of children. Grant that the taste may 
be greatly improved by reading all the poetry writ- 
ten in extinct languages, yet it is not to be inferred 
that such improvement of taste is equivalent in 
value to an acquaintance with the laws of health. 
Accomplishments, the fine arts, belles-lettres, and all 
those things which, as we say, constitute the efflor- 
escence of civilization, should be wholly subordinate 
to that knowledge and discipline in which civiliza- 
tion rests. As they occupy the leisure part of life, so 
should they occupy the leisure part of education. 

Recognizing thus the true position of aesthetics, 
and holding that while the cultivation of Esthetics 

. still based 

them should form a part of education on science. 
from its commencement, such cultivation should be 
subsidiary, we have now to inquire what knowledge 
is of most use to this end — what knowledge best fits 
for this remaining sphere of activity. To this ques- 
tion the answer is still the same as heretofore. Un- 
expected as the assertion may be, it is nevertheless 
true, that the highest Art of every kind is based 



70 THE KNOWLEDGE OF MOST WORTH 

upon Science — that without Science there can be 
neither perfect production nor full appreciation. 

Science, in that limited technical acceptation cur- 
rent in society, may not have ' been possessed by 
many artists of high repute ; but acute observers as 
they have been, they have always possessed a stock 
of those empirical generalizations which constitute 
science in its lowest phase, and they have habitually 
fallen far below perfection, partly because their gen- 
eralizations were comparatively few and inaccurate. 
That science necessarily underlies the fine arts, be- 
comes manifest, d priori, when we remember that 
art-products are all more or less representative of 
objective or subjective phenomena ; that they can 
be true only in proportion as they conform to the 
laws of these phenomena ; and that before they can 
thus conform the artist must know what these laws 
are? That this a priori conclusion tallies with ex- 
perience we shall soon see. 

Youths preparing for the practice of sculpture, 
have to acquaint themselves with the 
bones and muscles of the human frame 
in their distribution, attachments, and movements. 
This is a portion of science, and it has been found 
needful to impart it for the prevention of those many 
errors which sculptors who do not possess it com- 
mit. For the prevention of other mistakes, a 
knowledge of mechanical principles is requisite ; 
and such knowledge not being usually possessed, 



FOR AESTHETIC CULTURE 71 

grave mechanical mistakes are frequently made. 

Take an instance. For the stability of a figure it 
is needful that the perpendicular from the centre of 
gravity — " the line of direction ", as it is called — 
should fall within the base of support ; and hence it 
happens, that when a man assumes the attitude 
known as "standing at ease", in which one leg is 
straightened and the other relaxed, the line of 
direction falls within the foot of the straightened 
leg. But sculptors unfamiliar with the theory of 
equilibrium, not uncommonly so represent this atti- 
tude, that the line of direction falls midway between 
the feet. Ignorance of the laws of momentum leads 
to analogous errors : as witness the admired Dis- 
cobolus, which, as it is posed, must inevitably fall 
forward the moment the quoit is delivered. 

In painting, the necessity for scientific knowledge, 
empirical if not rational, is still more con- 
spicuous. In what consists the grotesque- 
ness of Chinese pictures, uuless in their utter disre- 
gard of the laws of appearances — in their absurd 
linear perspective, and their want of aerial perspec- 
tive ? In what are the drawings of a child so faulty, 
if not in a similar absence of truth — an absence 
arising, in great part, from ignorance of the way in 
which the aspects of things vary with the condi- 
tions ? Do but remember the books and lectures by 
which students are instructed ; or consider, the 
criticisms of Ruskin ; or look at the doings of the 



72 THE KNOAVLEDGE OF MOST WORTH 

Pre-Raffa elites ; and you will see that progress in 
painting implies increasing knowledge of how effects 
in Nature are produced. 

The most diligent observation, if not aided by 
science, fails to preserve from error. Every painter 
will indorse the assertion that unless it is known 
what appearances must exist under given circum- 
stances, they often will not be perceived ; and to 
know what appearances must exist, is, in so far, to 
understand the science of appearances. From want 
of science Mr. J. Lewis, careful painter as he is, 
casts the shadow of a lattice-window in sharply- 
defined lines upon an opposite wall ; which he 
would not have done, had he been familiar with 
the phenomena of penumbrse. From want of science, 
Mr. Rosetti, catching sight of a peculiar iridescence 
displayed by certain hairy surfaces. under particular 
lights (an iridescence caused by the diffraction of 
light in passing the hairs), commits the error of 
showing this iridescence on surfaces and in positions 
where it could not occur. 

To say that music, too, has need of scientific aid 
will seem still more surprising. Yet it is 
demonstrable that music is but an ideal- 
ization of the natural language of emotion, and that 
consequently music must be good or bad according 
as it conforms to the laws of this natural language. 
The various inflections of voice which accompany 
feelings of different kinds and intensities, have been 



FOR ESTHETIC CULTURE 73 

shown to be the germs out of which music is de- 
veloped. It has been further shown that these 
inflections and cadences are not accidental or ar- 
bitrary, but that they are determined by certain 
general principles of vital action, and that their ex- 
pressiveness depends on this. Whence it follows 
that musical phrases, and the melodies built of them, 
can be effective only when they are in harmony 
with these general principles. 

It is difficult here properly to illustrate this posi- 
tion. But perhaps it will suffice to instance the 
swarms of worthless ballads that infest drawing 
rooms, as compositions which science would forbid. 
They sin against science by; setting to music ideas 
that are not emotional enough to prompt musical 
expression, and they also sin against science by 
using musical phrases that have no natural relation 
to the ideas expressed even where these are emotional. 
They are bad because they are untrue. And to say 
they are untrue is to say they are unscientific. 

Even in poetiy the same thing holds. Like 
music, poetry has its root in those natural 

, « . -, . -, In poetry. 

mocies oi expression which accompany 
deep feeling. Its rhythm, its strong and numerous 
metaphors, its hyperboles, its violent inversions, are 
simply exaggerations of the traits of excited speech. 
To be good, therefore, poetry must pay respect to 
those laws of nervous action which excited speech 
obeys. In intensifying and combining the traits of 



74 THE KNOWLEDGE OF MOST WORTH 

excited speech, it must have due regard to propor- 
tion — must not use its appliances without restriction, 
but, where the ideas are least emotional, must use 
the forms of poetical expression sparingly ; must use 
them more freely as the emotion rises, and must 
carry them all to their greatest extent only where 
the emotion reaches a climax. The entire contra- 
vention of these principles results in bombast or 
doggerel. The insufficient respect for them is seen 
in didactic poetry. And it is because they are 
rarely fully obeyed that we have so much poetry 
that is inartistic. 

Not only is it that the artist, of whatever kind, 
Art based on cann °t produce a truthful work without 
psychology. j ie understands the laws of the phenomena 
he represents, but it is that he must also understand 
how the minds of spectators or listeners will be 
affected by the several peculiarities of his work — a 
question in psychology. What impression any 
given art-product generates manifestly depends upon 
the mental natures of those to whom it is presented ; 
and, as all mental natures have certain general 
principles in common, there must result certain cor- 
responding general principles on which alone art- 
products can be successfully framed. 

These general principles cannot be fully under- 
stood and applied unless the artist sees how they 
follow from the laws of mind. To ask whether 
the composition of a picture is good, is really to ask 



FOR ^ESTHETIC CULTURE 75 

how the inceptions and feelings of observers will be 
affected by it. To ask whether a drama is well 
constructed, is to ask whether its situations are so 
arranged as duly to consult the power of attention 
of an audience, and duly to avoid overtaxing any 
one class of feelings. Equally in arranging the 
leading divisions of a poem or fiction, and in com- 
bining the words of a single sentence, the goodness 
of the effect depends upon the skill with which the 
mental energies and susceptibilities of the reader are 
economized. Every artist, in the course of his edu- 
cation and after-life, accumulates a stock of maxims 
by which his practice is regulated. Trace such 
maxims to their roots and you find they inevitably 
lead you down to psychological principles. And 
only when the artist rationally understands these 
psychological principles and their various corollaries 
can he work in harmony with them. 

We clo not for a moment believe that science will 
make an artist. While we contend that Genius 

-i-it i i i married to 

the leading laws both of objective and science, 
subjective phenomena must be understood by him, 
we by no means contend that knowledge of such 
laws will serve in j:>lace of natural perception. Not 
only the poet, but also the artist of every type, is 
born, not made. What we assert is, that innate 
faculty alone will not suffice, but must have the aid 
of organized knowledge. Intuition will do much, 
but it will not do all. Only when Genius is mar- 



76 THE KNOWLEDGE OF MOST WORTH 

ried to Science can the highest results be produced. 

As we have before asserted, Science is necessary 
science not only for the most successful produc- 

appreciation. tion, but also for the full appreciation of 
the fine arts. In what consists the greater ability 
of a man than of a child to perceive the beauties of 
a picture unless it is in his more extended knowl- 
edge of those truths in nature or life which the 
picture renders ? How happens the cultivated gen- 
tleman to enjoy a fine poem so much more than a 
boor does, if it is not because his wider acquaintance 
with objects and actions enables him to see in the 
poem much that the boor cannot see ? And if, as is 
here so obvious, there must be some familiarity with 
the things represented, before the representation can 
be appreciated, then the representation can be com- 
pletely appreciated only in proportion as the things 
represented are completely understood. 

The fact is, that every additional truth which a 
work of art expresses gives an additional pleasure 
to the percipient mind — a pleasure that is missed 
by those ignorant of this truth. The more realities 
an artist indicates in any given amount of work, 
the more faculties does he appeal to ; the more 
numerous associated ideas does he suggest, the more 
Gratification does he afford. But to receive this 

CD 

gratification the spectator, listener, or reader, must 
know the realities which the artist has indicated ; and 
to know these realities is to know so much science. 



FOR .ESTHETIC CULTURE 77 

And now let us not overlook the further great 
fact, that not only does science underlie science 

. . . , itself 

sculpture, painting, music, poetry, but poetic, 
that science is itself poetic. The current opinion 
that science and poetry are opposed is a delusion. 
It is doubtless true that as states of consciousness 
cognition and emotion tend to exclude each other. 
And it is doubtless also true that an extreme activity 
of the reflective powers tends to deaden the feelings, 
while an extreme activity of the feelings tends to 
deaden the reflective powers : in which sense, in- 
deed, all orders of activity are antagonistic to each 
other. But it is not true that the facts of science 
are unpoetical, or that the cultivation of science is 
necessarily unfriendly to the exercise of imagination 
or the love of the beautiful. 

On the contrary, science opens up realms of poetry 
where to the unscientific all is a blank. Those en- 
gaged in scientific researches constantly show us 
that they realize not less vividly, but more vividly, 
than others, the poetry of their subjects. Whoever 
will dip into Hugh Miller's works on geology, or 
read Mr. Lewes's "Seaside Studies", will perceive 
that science excites poetry rather than extinguishes 
it. And whoever will contemplate the life of Goethe 
will see that the poet and the man of science can 
co-exist in equal activity. 

Is it not, indeed, an absurd and almost a sacrile- 
gious belief that the more a man studies Nature the 



78 THE KNOWLEDGE OF MOST WORTH 

less he reveres it ? Think you that a drop of water, 
which to the vulgar eye is but a drop of water, loses 
anything in the eye of the physicist who knows that 
its elements are held together by a force which, if 
suddenly liberated, would produce a flash of light- 
ning? Think you that what is carelessly looked 
upon by the uninitiated as a mere snow-flake, does 
not suggest higher associations to one who has seen 
through a microscope the wondrously varied and 
elegant forms of snow-crystals? Think you that 
the rounded rock marked with parallel scratches 
calls up as much poetry in an ignorant mincfr as in 
the mind of a geologist, who knows that over this 
rock a glacier slid a million years ago ? 

The truth is, that those who have never entered 
upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the 
poetry by which they are surrounded. Whoever 
has not in youth collected plants and insects, knows 
not half the halo of interest which lanes and hedge- 
rows can assume. Whoever has not sought for 
fossils, has little idea of the poetical associations that 
surround the places where imbedded treasures were 
found. Whoever at the seaside has not had a 
microscope and aquarium, has yet to learn what 
the highest pleasures of the seaside are. 

Sad, indeed, is it to see how men occupy them- 
selves with trivialities and are indifferent to the 
grandest phenomena — care not to understand the 
architecture of the Heavens, but are deeply inter- 



FOR DISCIPLINE 79 

ested in some contemptible controversy about the 
intrigues of Mary Queen of Scots ! — are learnedly 
critical over a Greek ode, and pass by without a 
glance that grand epic written by the finger of God 
upon the strata of the Earth ! 

We find, then, that even for this remaining di- 
vision of human activities, scientific culture is the 
proper preparation. We find that aesthetics in gen- 
eral are necessarily based upon scientific principles, 
and can be pursued with complete success only 
through an acquaintance with these principles. We 
find that for the criticism and due ajDpreciation of 
works of art, a knowledge of the constitution of 
things, or in other words, a knowledge of science, is 
requisite. And we not only find that science is 
the handmaid to all forms of art and poetry, but 
that, rightly regarded, science is itself poetic. 

B. KNOWLEDGE FOR DISCIPLINE 

Thus far our question, has been, the worth of 
knowledge of this or that kind for pur- Nature 
poses of guidance. We have now to conslstent - 
judge the relative values of different kinds of knowl- 
edge for purposes of discipline. This division of 
our subject we are obliged to treat with comparative 
brevity, and happily, no very lengthened treatment 
of it is needed. Having found what is best for the 
one end, we have by implication found what is best 
for the other. We may be quite sure that the ac- 



80 THE KNOWLEDGE OF MOST WORTH 

quirement of those classes of facts which are most 
useful for regulating conduct, involves a mental ex- 
ercise best fitted for strengthening the faculties. It 
would be utterly contrary to the beautiful economy 
of Nature, if one kind of culture were needed for 
the gaining of information and another kind were 
needed as a mental gymnastic. 

Everywhere throughout creation we find faculties 
developed through the performance of those func- 
tions which it is their office to perform ; not through 
the performance of artificial exercises devised to fit 
them for these functions. The Red Indian acquires 
the swiftness and agility which make him a success- 
ful hunter, by the actual pursuit of animals, and by 
the miscellaneous activities of his life he gains a 
better balance of physical powers than gymnastics 
ever give. That skill in tracking enemies and prey 
which he has reached by long practice, implies a 
subtlety of perception far exceeding anything pro- 
duced by artificial training. And similarly through- 
out. From the Bushman, whose eye, which being 
habitually employed in identifying distant objects 
that are to be pursued or fled from, has acquired a 
quite telescopic range, to the accountant whose daily 
practice enables him to add up several columns of 
figures simultaneously, we find that the highest 
power of a faculty results from a discharge of those 
duties which the conditions of life require it to dis- 
charge. And we may be certain, a priori, that the 



FOR DISCIPLINE 81 

same law holds throughout education. The educa- 
tion of most value for guidance, must at the same 
time be the education of most value for discipline. 
Let us consider the evidence. 

One advantage claimed for that devotion to lan- 
guage-learning which forms so prominent 

& „ & , . X v • i The memory. 

a feature in the ordinary curriculum, is, 
that the memory is thereby strengthened. And it 
is apparently assumed that this is an advantage 
peculiar to the study of words. 

But the truth is that the sciences afford far wider 
fields for the exercise of memory. It is no slight 
task to remember all the facts ascertained respecting 
our solar system ; much more to remember all that 
is known concerning the structure of our galaxv. 
The new compounds which chemistry daily ac- 
cumulates are so numerous, that few, save professors, 
know the names of them all ; and to recollect the 
atomic constitutions and affinities of all these com- 
pounds, is scarcely possible without making chem- 
istry the occupation of life. In the enormous mass 
of phenomena presented by the Earth's crust, and 
in the still more enormous mass of phenomena pre- 
sented by the fossils it contains, there is matter 
which it takes the geological student years of appli- 
cation to master. In each leading division of 
physics— sound, heat, light, electricity — the facts 
are numerous enough to alarm any one proposing 
to learn them all. 



82 THE KNOWLEDGE OF MOST WORTH 

And when we pass to the organic sciences, the 
effort of memory required becomes still greater. In 
human anatomy alone, the quantity of detail is so 
great that the young surgeon has commonly to get 
it up half-a-dozen times before he can permanently 
retain it. The number of species of plants which 
botanists distinguish amounts to some 320,000, 
while the varied forms of animal life with which 
the zoologist deals are estimated at some two mil- 
lions. So vast, is the accumulation of facts which 
men of science have before them, that only by divid- 
ing and subdividing their labors can they deal with 
it. To a complete knowledge of his own division, 
each adds but a general knowledge of the rest. 
Surely, then, science, cultivated even to a very mod- 
erate extent, affords adequate exercise for memory. 
To say the very least, it involves quite as good a 
training for this faculty as language does. 

But now mark that while for the training of mere 
memory, science is as good as, if not better than, 
language, it has an immense superiority in the kind 
of memory it cultivates. In the acquirement of a 
language the connections of ideas to be established 
in the mind correspond to facts that are in great 
measure accidental ; whereas, in the acquirement of 
science the connections of ideas to be established in 
the mind correspond to facts that are mostly 
necessary. 

It is true that the relations of words to their mean- 



FOR DISCIPLINE 83 

ing is in one sense natural, and that the genesis of 
these relations may be traced back a certain dis- 
tance ; though very rarely to the beginning ; (to 
which let us add the remark that the laws of this 
genesis form a branch of mental science — the science 
of philology). But since it will not be contended 
that in the acquisition of languages, as ordinarily 
carried on, these natural relations between words 
and their meanings are habitually traced, and the 
laws regulating them explained, it must be admitted 
that they are commonly learned as fortuitous rela- 
tions. On the other hand, the relations which 
science presents are causal relations, and, when 
property taught, are understood as such. Instead 
of being practically accidental, they are necessary, 
and as such, give exercise to the reasoning faculties. 
While language familiarizes with non-rational rela- 
tions, science familiarizes with rational relations. 
While the one exercises memory only, the other 
exercises both memory and understanding. 

Observe next that a great superiority of science 
over language as a means of discipline, is The 
that it cultivates the judgment. As, in a -i ud ^ ment - 
lecture on mental education delivered at the Royal 
Institution Professor Faraday well remarks, the 
most common intellectual fault is deficiency of judg- 
ment. He contends that " Society, speaking gen- 
erally, is not only ignorant as respects education of 
the judgment, but it is also ignorant of its ignor- 



84 THE KNOWLEDGE OF MOST WOUTH 

ance." And the cause to which he ascribes this 
state is want of scientific culture. 

The truth of his conclusion is obvious. Correct 
judgment with regard to all surrounding things, 
events, and consequences, becomes possible only 
through knowledge of the way in which surround- 
ing phenomena depend on each other. No extent 
of acquaintance with the meanings of words, can 
give the power of forming correct inferences respect- 
ing causes and effects. The constant habit of draw- 
ing conclusions from data, and then of verifying 
those conclusions by observation and experiment, 
can alone give the power of judging correctly. 
And that it necessitates this habit is one of the im- 
mense advantages of science. 

Not only, however, for intellectual discipline is 
The moral science the best, but also for moral dis- 
powers. cipline. The learning of languages tends, 

if anything, further to increase the already undue 
respect for authority. Such and such are the mean- 
ings of these words, says the teacher or the diction- 
ary. So and so is the rule in this case, says the 
grammar. By the pupil these dicta are received as 
unquestionable. His constant attitude of mind is 
that of submission to dogmatic teaching. And a 
necessary result is a tendenc}^ to accept without in- 
quiry whatever is established. 

Quite opposite is the attitude of mind generated 
by the cultivation of science. By science, constant 



FOR DISCIPLINE 85 

appeal is made to individual reason. Its truths are 
not accepted upon authority alone, but all are at 
liberty to test them — nay, in many cases, the pupil 
is required to think out his own conclusions. Every 
step in a scientific investigation is submitted to his 
judgment. He is not asked to admit it without 
seeing it to be true. And the trust in his own pow- 
ers thus produced, is further increased by the con- 
stancy with which Nature justifies his conclusions 
when they are correctly drawn. From all which 
there flows that independence which is a most valu- 
able element in character. 

Nor is this the only moral benefit bequeathed by 
scientific culture. When carried on, as it should 
always be, as much as possible under the form of* 
independent research, it exercises perseverance and 
sincerity. As says Professor Tyndall of inductive 
inquiry : " It requires patient industry, and an hum- 
ble and conscientious acceptance of what Nature 
reveals. The first condition of success is an honest 
receptivity and a willingness to abandon all precon- 
ceived notions, however cherished, if they be found 
to contradict the truth. Believe me, a self-renuncia- 
tion which has something noble in it, and of which 
the world never hears, is often enacted in the private 
experience of the true votary of science." 

Lastly we have to assert — and the assertion will, 
we doubt not, cause extreme surprise — ReiMous 
that the discipline of science is superior to culture - 



86 THE KNOWLEDGE OF MOST WORTH 

that of our ordinary education because of the religious 
culture that it gives. Of course we do not here use 
the words scientific and religious in their ordinary 
limited acceptations ; but in their widest and high- 
est acceptations. Doubtless, to the superstitions that 
pass under the name of religion, science is antago- 
nistic ; but not to the essential religion which these 
superstitions merely hide. Doubtless, too, in much of 
the science that is current, there is a pervading spirit 
of irreligion ; but not in that true science which 
has passed beyond the superficial into the profound. 
■ " True science and true religion," says Professor 
Huxley at the close of a recent course of lectures, 
" are twin-sisters, and the separation of either from 
the other is sure to prove the death of both. 
Science prospers exactly in proportion as it is re- 
ligious ; and religion flourishes in exact proportiou 
to the scientific depth and firmness of its basis. The 
great deeds of philosophers have been less the fruit 
of their intellect than of the direction of that intel- 
lect by an eminently religious tone of mind. Truth 
has yielded herself rather to their patience, their 
love, their single-heartedness, and their self-denial, 
than to their logical acumen." 

So far from science being irreligious, as many 
Neglect of think, it is the neglect of science that ^s 
irreligious. irreligious — it is the refusal to study the 
surrounding creation that is irreligious. Take an 
humble simile. Suppose a writer were daily saluted 



FOR RELIGIOUS CULTURE 87 

with praises couched in superlative language. Sup- 
pose the wisdom, the grandeur, the beauty of his 
works, were the constant topics of the eulogies ad- 
dressed to him. Suppose those who unceasingly 
uttered these eulogies on his works were content 
with looking at the outsides of them, and had never 
opened them, much less tried to understand them. 
What value should we put upon their praises? 
What should we think of their sincerity ? 

Yet, comparing small things to great, such is ^ne 
conduct of mankind in general, in reference to the 
Universe and its Cause. Nay, it is worse. Not 
only do they pass by without study these things 
which they daily proclaim to be so wonderful, but 
very frequently they condemn as mere triflers those 
who give time to the observation of Nature — they 
actually scorn those who show any active interest in 
these marvels. We repeat then, that not science, 
but the neglect of science, is irreligious. Devotion 
to science is a tacit worship — a tacit recognition of 
worth in the things studied ; and by implication in 
their Cause. It is not a mere lip-homage, but a 
homage expressed in actions — not a mere professed 
respect, but a respect proved by the sacrifice of time, 
thought, and labor. 

Nor is it thus only that true science is essentially 
religious. It is religious, too, inasmuch Respect 
as it generates a profound respect for, and for aw * 
an implicit faith in, those uniform laws which un- 



88 THE KNOWLEDGE OF MOST WORTH 

derlie all things. By accumulated experiences tne 
man of science acquires a thorough belief in the 
unchanging relations of phenomena — in the in- 
variable connection of cause and consequence — in 
the necessity of good or evil results. Instead of the 
rewards and punishments of traditional belief, 
which men vaguely hope they may gain, or escape, 
spite of their disobedience, he finds that there are 
rewards and punishments in the ordained constitu- 
tion of things, and that the evil results of disobedience 
are inevitable. He sees that the laws to which we 
must submit are not only inexorable but beneficent. 
He sees that in virtue of these laws, the process of 
things is ever towards a greater perfection and a 
higher happiness. Hence he is led constantly to 
insist on these laws and is indignant when men dis- 
regard them. And thus does he, by asserting the 
eternal principles of things and the necessity of con- 
forming to them, prove himself intrinsically religious. 
To all which add the further religious aspect of 
Tbeuuknow- sc i euce > that it alone can give us true 
able. conceptions of ourselves and our relation 

to the mysteries of existence. At the same time 
that it shows us all which can be known, it shows 
us the limits beyond which we can know nothing. 
Not by dogmatic assertion does it teach the impos- 
sibility of comprehending the ultimate cause of 
things ; but it leads us clearly to recognize this im- 
possibility by bringing us in every direction to 



FOR RECOGNITION OF THE UNKNOWABLE 89 

boundaries we cannot Cross. It realizes to us in a 
way which nothing else can, the littleness of human 
intelligence in the face of that which transcends 
human intelligence. 

While towards the traditions and authorities of 
men its attitude may be proud, before the impen- 
etrable veil which hides the Absolute its attitude is 
humble — a true pride and a true humility. Only 
the sincere man of science (and by this title we do 
not mean the mere calculator of distances, or analyzer 
of compounds, or labeller of species ; but him who 
through lower truths seeks higher, and eventually 
the highest) — only the genuine man of science, we 
say, can truly know how utterly beyond, not only 
human knowledge, but human conception, is the 
Universal Power of which Nature, and Life, and 
Thought are manifestations. 

We conclude, then, that for discipline, as well as 
for guidance, science is of chiefest value. In all its 
effects, learning the meanings of things is better 
than learning the meanings of words. Whether for 
intellectual, moral, or religious training, the study 
of surrounding phenomena is immensely superior 
to the study of grammars and lexicons. 

Thus to the question with which we set out — 
What knowledge is of most worth ? — the Science is of 
uniform reply is— Science. This is the most worth - 
verdict on all the counts. For direct self-preserva- 
tion, or the maintenance of life and health, the all- 



90 THE KNOWLEDGE OF MOST WORTH 

important knowledge is — Science. For that indirect 
self-preservation which we call gaining a livelihood, 
the knowledge of greatest value is-^-Science. For 
the due discharge of parental functions, the proper 
guidance is to be found only in — Science, For that 
interpretation of national life, past and present, 
without which the citizen cannot rightly regulate 
his conduct, the indispensable key is — Science. 
Alike for the most perfect production and highest 
enjoyment of art in all its forms, the needful prep- 
aration is still — Science. And for purposes of dis- 
cipline — intellectual, moral, religious — tile most 
efficient study is, once more — Science. 

The question which at first seemed so perplexed, 
has become, in the course of our inquiry, compara- 
tively simple. We have not to estimate the degrees 
of importance of different orders of human activity, 
and different studies as severally fitting us for them, 
since we find that the study of Science, in its most 
comprehensive meaning, is the best jDreparation for 
all these orders of activity. AVe have not to decide 
between the claims of knowledge of great though 
conventional value, and knowledge of less though 
intrinsic value ; seeing that the knowledge which 
we find to be of most value in all other respects, is 
intrinsically most valuable : its worth is not de- 
pendent upon opinion, but is as fixed as is the rela- 
tion of man to the surrounding world. Necessary 
and eternal as are its truths, all Science concerns all 



SCIENCE, SCIENCE, SCIENCE 91 

mankind for all time. Equally at present, and in 
the remotest future, must it be of incalculable im- 
portance for the regulation of their conduct that 
men should understand the science of life, physical, 
mental, and social, and that they should under- 
stand all other science as a key to the science of life. 
And yet the knowledge which is of such tran- 



scendent value is that which, in our age , 
of boasted education, receives the least ] 



inge n 
of it. 



attention. While this which we call civilization 
could never have arisen had it not been for science, 
science forms scarcely an appreciable element in 
what men consider civilized training. Though to 
the progress of science we owe it that millions find 
support where once there was food only for thous- 
ands, yet of these millions but a few thousands pay 
any respect to that which has made their existence 
possible. Though this increasing knowledge of the 
properties and relations of things has not only enabled 
wandering tribes to grow into populous nations, but 
has given to the countless members of those populous 
nations comforts and pleasures which their few 
naked ancestors never even conceived, or could have 
believed, yet is this kind of knowledge only now 
receiving a grudging recognition in our highest edu- 
cational institutions. To the slowly growing ac- 
quaintance with the uniform co-existences and 
sequences of phenomena — -to the establishment of 
invariable laws, we owe our emancipation from the 



92 THE KNOWLEDGE OF MOST WORTH 

grossest superstitions. But for science we should be 
still worshipping fetishes ; or, with hecatombs of 
victims, propitiating diabolical deities. And yet 
this science, which, in place of the most degrading 
conceptions of things, has given us some insight into 
the grandeurs of creation, is written against in our 
theologies and frowned upon from our pulpits. 

Paraphrasing an Eastern fable, we may say that 
The cinder- in the family of knowledges, Science is 

ella of our .. , , *. , , . 

century. the household drudge, who, m obscurity, 
hides unrecognized perfections. To her has been 
committed all the work ; by her skill, intelligence, 
and devotion, have all the conveniences and gratifi- 
cations been obtained ; and while ceaselessly occupied 
ministering to the rest, she has been kept in the 
background, that her haughty sisters might flaunt 
their fripperies in the eyes of the world. The 
parallel holds yet further. For we are fast coming 
to the denouement, when the positions will be 
changed ; and while these haughty sisters, sink into 
merited neglect, Science, proclaimed as highest alike 
in worth and beauty, will reign supreme. 



CHAPTER II 

INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION 

There cannot fail to be a relationship between the 
successive systems of education, and the Tbe old and 
successive social states with which they the new# 
have co-existed. Having a common origin in the na- 
tional mind, the institutions of each epoch, whatever 
be their special functions, must have a family likeness. 

When men received their creed and its interpre- 
tations from an infallible authority deign- in religion. 
ing no explanations, it was natural that the teaching 
of children should be purely dogmatic. While " be- 
lieve and ask no questions " was the maxim of the 
Church, it was fitly the maxim of the school. Con- 
versely, now that Protestantism has gained for adults 
a right of private judgment and established the 
practice of appealing to reason, there is harmony in 
the change that has made juvenile instruction a 
process of exposition addressed to the understanding. 

Along with political despotism, stern in its com- 
mands, ruling by force of terror, visiting In o. overu . 
trifling crimes with death, and implacable ment 
in its vengeance on the disloyal, there necessarily 
grew up an academic discipline similarly harsh — a 
discipline of multiplied injunctions and blows for 

(93) 



94 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION 

every breach of them — a discipline of unlimited 
autocracy upheld by rods, and ferules, and the 
black-hole. On the other hand, the increase of 
political liberty, the abolition of law restricting in- 
dividual action, and the amelioration of the criminal 
code, have been accompanied by a kindred progress 
towards non-coercive education : the pupil is ham- 
pered by fewer restraints, and other means than 
punishments are used to govern him. 

In those ascetic days when men, acting on the 
in enjoy- greatest misery principle, held that the 
ment. more gratifications they denied them- 

selves the more virtuous they were, they, as a matter 
of course, considered that the best education which 
most thwarted the wishes of their children, and cut 
short all spontaneous activity with — " You mustn't 
do so." While on the contrary, now that happiness 
is coming to be regarded as a legitimate aim — now 
that hours of labor are being shortened and popular 
recreations provided, parents and teachers are be- 
ginning to see that most childish desires may rightly 
be gratified, that childish sports should be encour- 
aged, and that the tendencies of the growing mind 
are not altogether so diabolical as was supposed. 

The age in which all thought that trades must be 
in trade established by bounties and prohibitions ; 
restrictions. ^at manu f ac turers needed their materials 
and qualities and prices to be prescribed, and that 
the value of money could be determined by law, was 



THE OLD AND THE NEW 95 

an age which unavoidably cherished the notions 
that a child's mind could be made to order ; that 
its powers were to be imparted by the schoolmaster ; 
that it was a receptacle into which knowledge was 
to be put and there built up after its teacher's ideal. 
In this free-trade era, however, when we are learn- 
ing that there is much more self-regulation in things 
than was supposed ; that labor and commerce, and 
agriculture, and navigation can do better without 
management than with it ; that political govern- 
ments, to be efficient, must grow up from within 
and not be imposed from without, we are also be- 
ginning to see that there is a natural process of 
mental evolution which is not to be disturbed with- 
out injury ; that we may not force on the unfolding 
mind our artificial forms ; but that Psychology, also, 
discloses to us a law of supply and demand, to 
which, if we would not do harm, we must conform. 

Thus alike in its oracular dogmatism, in its harsh 
discipline, in its multiplied restrictions, in its pro- 
fessed asceticism, and in its faith in the devices of 
men, the old educational regime was akin to the 
social systems with which it was contemporaneous ; 
and similarly, in the reverse of these characteristics 
our modern modes of culture correspond to our more 
liberal religious and political institutions. 

But there remain further parallelisms to which 
we have not yet adverted : that, namely, Diversity 
between the processes by which these re- uniformity. 



96 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION 

spective changes have been wrought out, and that 
between the several states of heterogeneous opinion 
to which they have led. 

Some centuries ago there was uniformity of belief 
— religious, political, and educational. All men 
were Romanists, all were Monarchists, all were dis- 
ciples of Aristotle, and no one thought of calling in 
question that grammar-school routine under which 
all were brought up. The same agency has in each 
case replaced this uniformity by a constantly in- 
creasing diversity. That tendency towards assertion 
of the individuality, which, after contributing to 
produce the great Protestant movement, has since 
gone on to produce an ever-increasing number of 
sects — that tendency which initiated political parties, 
and out of the two primary ones has, in these mod- 
ern days, evolved a multiplicity to which every 
year adds — that tendency which led to the'Bacouiau 
rebellion against the schools, and has since originated 
here and abroad sundry new systems of thought — 
is a tendency which, in education also, has caused 
division and the accumulation of methods. As ex- 
ternal consequences of the same internal change, 
these processes have necessarily been more or less 
simultaneous. 

The decline of authority, whether papal, phil- 
Tbe decline osophic, kingly, or tutorial, is essentially 
of authority. 0Re phenomenon ; in each of its aspects a 
leaning towards free action is seen alike in the work- 



■ 



THE OLD AND THE NEW 97 

ing out of the change itself, and in the new forms 
of theory and practice to which the change has 
given birth. 

While many will regret this multiplication of 
schemes of juvenile culture, the catholic search for 

,,.' "'. . the true 

observer will discern m it a means of en- method, 
suring the final establishment of a rational system. 
Whatever may be thought of theological dissent, it 
is clear that dissent in education results in facil- 
itating inquiry by the division in labor. Were we 
in possession of the true method, divergence from it 
would, of course, be prejudicial ; but the true method 
having to be found, the efforts of numerous inde- 
pendent seekers, carrying out their researches in dif- 
ferent directions, constitute a better agency for find- 
ing it than any that could be devised. Each of 
them struck by some new thought which probably 
■contains more or less of basis in facts — each of them 
zealous on behalf of his plan, fertile in expedients to 
test its correctness, and untiring in his efforts to 
make known its success — each of them merciless in 
his criticism on the rest — there cannot fail, by com- 
position of forces, to be a gradual approximation of 
all towards the right course. Whatever portion of 
the normal method any one of them has discovered, 
must, by the constant exhibition of its results, force 
itself into adoption ; whatever wrong practices he 
has joined with it must, by repeated experiment 
and failure, be exploded. 



98 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION 

And by this aggregation of truths and elimination 
The three of errors, there must eventually be devel- 
opmion. oped a correct and complete body of 

doctrine. Of the three phases through which human 
opinion passes — the unanimity of the ignorant, the 
disagreement of the inquiring, and the unanimity 
of the wise — it is manifest that the second is the 
parent of the third. They are not sequences in 
time only ; they are sequences in causation. How- 
ever impatiently, therefore, we may witness the 
present conflict of educational systems, and however 
much we may regret its accompanying evils, we 
must recognize it as a transition stage needful to be 
passed through, and beneficent in its ultimate 
effects. 

Meanwhile may we not advantageously take stock 
The past and of our progress ? After fifty years of dis- 
the present. cuss i onj experiment, and comparison of 
results, may we not expect a few steps towards the 
goal to be already made good ? Some old methods 
must by this time have fallen out of use ; some new 
ones must have become established, and many others 
must be in process of general abandonment or adop- 
tion. Probably we may see in these various chauges, 
when put side by side, similar characteristics — may 
find in them a common tendency, and so, by infer- 
ence, may get a clue to the direction in which ex- 
perience is leading us, and gather hints how we may 
achieve yet further improvements. Let us then, 



THE OLD AND THE NEW 99 

as a preliminary to a deeper consideration of the 
matter, glance at the leading contrasts between the 
education of the past and of the present. 

The suppression of every error is commonly fol- 
lowed by a temporary ascendency of the The text _ 
contrary one; and it so happened that book P eriod - 
after the ages when physical development alone was 
aimed at, there came an age when culture of the 
mind was the sole solicitude — when children had 
lesson-books put before them at between two and 
three years old — when school-hours were protracted, 
and the getting of knowledge was thought the one 
thing needful. 

As, further, it usually happens that after one of 
these reactions the next advance is Firsti a£ood 
achieved by co-ordinating the antagonistic ammaL 
errors and perceiving that they are opposite sides of 
one truth ; so we are now coming to the conviction 
that body and mind must both be cared for, and 
the whole being unfolded. The forcing system has 
been in great measure given up and precocity is dis- 
couraged. People are beginning to see that the first 
requisite to success in life is to be a good animal. 
The best brain is found of little service if there be 
not enough vital energy to work it ; and hence to 
obtain the one by sacrificing the source of the other, 
is now considered a folly — a folly which the eventual 
failure of juvenile prodigies constantly illustrates. 
Thus we are discovering the wisdom of the saying, 



100 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION 

that one secret in education is "to know how wisely 
to lose time ". 

The once universal practice of learning by rote is 
Learning daily falling more into discredit. All 
by rote. modern authorities condemn the old 
mechanical way of teaching the alphabet. The 
multiplication table is now frequently taught ex- 
perimentally. In the acquirement of languages, the 
grammar-school plan is being superseded by plans 
based on the spontaneous process followed by the 
child in gaining its mother tongue. Describing the 
methods there used, the " Reports on the Training 
School at Battersea " say : — " The instruction in the 
whole preparatory course is chiefly oral, and is illus- 
trated as much as possible by appeals to nature." 
And so throughout. The rote-system, like other sys- 
tems of its age, made more of the forms and symbols 
than of the things symbolized. To repeat the words 
correctly was everything ; to understand their mean- 
ing, nothing, — and thus the spirit was sacrificed to 
the letter. It is at length perceived that in this 
case, as in others, such a result is not accidental but 
necessary — that in proportion as there is attention to 
the signs, there must be inattention to the things 
signified ; or that, as Montaigne long ago said — 
Sgavoir par coeur n'est pas sgavoir. 

Along with rote-teaching, is declining also the 
Teaching nearly allied teaching by rules. The par- 
by rules. ticulars first and then the generalization, 



THE OLD AND THE NEW 101 

is the new method — a method, as the Battersea 
School Reports remark, which, though " the reverse 
of the method usually followed, which consists in 
giving the pupil the rule first," is yet proved by ex- 
perience to be the right one. Rule-teaching is now 
condemned as imparting a merely empirical knowl- 
edge — as producing an appearance of understanding 
without the reality. To give the net product of in- 
quiry without the inquiry that leads to it is found 
to be both enervating and inefficient. General 
truths to be of due and permanent use, must be 
earned. " Easy come easy go," is a saying as ap- 
plicable to knowledge as to wealth. 

While rules, lying isolated in the mind — not 
joined to its other contents as outgrowths from them 
— are continually forgotten, the principles which 
those rules express piecemeal, become, when once 
reached by the understanding, enduring possessions. 
While the rule-taught youth is at sea when beyond 
his rules, the youth instructed in principles solves a 
new case as readily as an old one. 

Between a mind of rules and a mind of principles, 
there exists a difference such as that between a con- 
fused heap of materials, and the same materials 
organized into a complete whole, with all its parts 
bound together. Of which types this last has not 
only the advantage that its constituent parts are 
better retained, but the much greater advantage, 
that it forms an efficient agent for inquiry, for in- 



102 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION 

dependent thought, for discovery — ends for which 
the first is useless. Nor let it be supposed that this 
is a simile only : it is the literal truth. The union 
of facts into generalizations is the organization of 
knowledge, whether considered as an objective 
phenomenon, or a subjective one : and the mental 
grasp may be measured by the extent to which this 
organization is carried. 

From the substitution of principles for rules, and 
Grammar the necessarily co-ordinate practice of 
language. leaving abstractions untaught until the 
mind has been familiarized with the facts from 
which they are abstracted, has resulted the post- 
ponement of some once early studies to a late period. 
This is exemplified in the abandonment of that 
intensely stupid custom, the teaching of grammar 
to children. As M. Marcel says : — " It may without 
hesitation be affirmed that grammar is not the step- 
ping-stone, but the finishing instrument." As Mr. 
W}^se argues : — " Grammar and Syntax are a col- 
lection of laws and rules. Rules are gathered from 
practice ; they are the results of induction to which 
we come by long observation and comparison of 
facts. It is, in fine, the science, the philosophy of 
language. In following the process of nature, neither 
individuals nor nations ever arrive at the science 
first A language is spoken, and poetry written, 
many years before either a grammar or prosody is 
even thought of. Men did not wait till Aristotle 



THE OLD AND THE NEW 103 

had constructed his logic, to reason. In short, as 
grammar was made after language, so ought it to be 
taught after language : an inference which all who 
recognize the relationship between the evolution of 
the race and of the individual, will see to be un- 
avoidable." 

Of new practices that have grown up during the 
decline of these old ones, the most im- object 
portant is the systematic culture of the lessons - 
powers of observation. After long ages of blindness 
men are at last seeing that the spontaneous activity 
of the observing faculties in children has a mean- 
ing and a use. What was once thought mere pur- 
poseless action, or play, or mischief, as the case 
might be, is now recognized as the process of ac- 
quiring a knowledge on which all after-knowledge 
is based. Hence the well-conceived but ill-conducted 
system of object-lessons. The saying of Bacon, that 
physics is the mother of sciences, has come to have 
a meaning in education. Without an accurate ac- 
quaintance with the visible and tangible properties 
of things, our conceptions must be erroneous, our 
inferences fallacious, and our operations unsuccess- 
ful. "The education of the senses neglected, all 
after education partakes of a drowsiness, a haziness, 
an insufficiency which it is impossible to cure." 

Indeed, if we consider it, we shall find that ex- 
haustive observation is an element in all great 
success. It is not to artists, naturalists, and men of 



104 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION 

science only, that it is needful ; it is not only that 
the skilful physician depends on it for the correct- 
ness of his diagnosis, and that to the good engineer 
it is so important that some years in the workshop 
are prescribed for him ; but we may see that the 
philosopher also is fundamentally one who observes 
relationships of things which others had overlooked, 
and that the poet, too, is one who sees the fine facts 
in nature which all recognize when pointed out, but 
did not before remark. Nothing requires more to 
be insisted on than that vivid and complete impres- 
sions are all-essential. No sound fabric of wisdom 
can be woven out of a rotten raw-material. 

While the old method of presenting truths in the 
science from abstract has been falling out of use, there 
objects. j ias b een a corresponding adoption of the 

new method of presenting them in the concrete. 
The rudimentary facts of exact science are now 
being learnt by direct intuition, as textures, and 
tastes, and colors are learnt. Employing the ball- 
frame for first lessons in arithmetic exemplifies this. 
It is well illustrated, too, in Professor De Morgan's 
mode of explaining the decimal notation. M. 
Marcel, rightly repudiating the old system of tables, 
teaches weights and measures by referring to the 
actual yard and foot, pound and ounce, gallon and 
quart, and lets the discovery of their relationships 
be experimental. The use of geographical models 
and models of the regular bodies, etc., as introduc- 






THE OLD AND THE NEW 105 

tory to geography and geometry respectively, are 
facts of the same class. 

Manifestly a common trait of these methods is, 
that they carry each child's mind through a process 
like that which the mind of humanity at large has 
gone through. The truths of number, of form, of 
relationship in position, were all originally drawn 
from objects, and to present these truths to the child 
in the concrete is to let him learn them as the race 
learnt them. By and by, perhaps, it will be seen 
that he cannot possibly learn them in any other 
way ; for that if he is made to repeat them as ab- 
stractions, the abstractions can have no meaning 
for him, until he finds that they are simply state- 
ments of what he intuitively discerns. 

But of all the changes taking place the most sig- 
nificant is the growing desire to make the study 
acquirement of knowledge pleasurable P leasurable - 
rather than painful — a desire based on the more or 
less distinct perception that at each age the intellec- 
tual action which a child likes is a healthful one for 
it ; and conversely. There is a spreading opinion 
that the rise of an appetite for any kind of knowl- 
edge implies that the unfolding mind has become 
fit to assimilate it and needs it for the purposes of 
growth ; and that on the other hand, the disgust felt 
toward any kind of knowledge is a sign either that 
it is prematurely presented, or that it is presented 
in an indigestible form, 



106 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION 

Hence the efforts to make early education amus- 
ing, and all education interesting. Hence the lec- 
tures on the value of play. Hence the defence of 
nursery rhymes and fairy tales. Daily we more 
and more conform our plans to juvenile opinion. 
Does the child like this or that kind of teaching ? 
does he take to it ? we constantly ask. " His nat- 
ural desire of variety should be indulged," says M. 
Marcel ; " and the gratification of his curiosity 
should be combined with his improvement." " Les- 
sons," he again remarks, "should cease before the 
child evinces symptoms of weariness." And so with 
later education. Short breaks during school-hours, 
excursions into the country, amusing lectures, choral 
songs — in these and many like traits, the change 
may be discerned. Asceticism is disappearing out 
of education as out of life ; and the usual test of 
political legislation — its tendency to promote happi- 
ness — is beginning to be, in a great degree, the test 
of legislation for the school and the nursery. 

What now is the common characteristic of these 
conforming several changes ? Is it not an increasing 
to nature. conformity to the methods of nature? 
The relinquishment of early forcing against which 
nature ever rebels, and the leaving of the first years 
for exercise of the limbs and senses, show this. The 
superseding of rote-learnt lessons by lessons orally 
and experimentally given, like those of the field and 
play-ground, shows this. The disuse of rule-teach- 



CONFORMING TO NATURE 107 

ing, and the adoption of teaching by principles — 
that is, the leaving of generalizations nntil there are 
particulars to base them on — show this. The sys- 
tem of object-lessons shows this. The teaching of 
the rudiments of science in the concrete instead of 
the abstract, shows this. 

And above all, this tendency is shown in the 
variously directed efforts to present knowledge in 
attractive forms, and so to'make the acquirement of 
it pleasurable. For as it is the order of nature in 
all creatures that the gratification accompanying the 
fulfilment of needful functions serves as a stimulus 
to their fulfilment — as during the self-education of 
the young child, the delight taken in the biting of 
corals, and the pulling to pieces of toys, becomes the 
prompter to actions which teach it the properties of 
matter, it follows that, in choosing the succession of 
subjects and the modes of instruction which most 
interest the pupil, we are fulfilling nature's behests, 
and adjusting our proceedings to the laws of life. 

Thus, then, we are on the highway toward the 
doctrine long ago enunciated by Pestalozzi, Pestalozzi , s 
that alike in its order and its methods, P nuci P le - 
education must conform to the natural process of 
mental evolution — that there is a certain sequence 
in which the faculties spontaneously develop, and a 
certain kind of knowledge which each requires dur- 
ing its development, and that it is for us to ascertain 
this sequence, and supply this knowledge. 



108 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION 

All the improvements above alluded to are partial 
applications of this general principle. A nebulous 
perception of it now prevails among teachers, 
and it is daily more insisted on in educational 
works. " The method of nature is the archetype of 
all methods," says M. Marcel. " The vital principle 
in the pursuit is to enable the pupil rightly to in- 
struct himself," writes Mr. "Wyse. 

The more science familiarizes us with the consti- 
tution of things the more do we see in them an 
inherent self-sumcingness. A higher knowledge 
tends continually to limit our interference with the 
processes of life. As in medicine the old " heroic 
treatment " has given place to mild treatment, and 
often no treatment save a normal regimen — as we 
have found that it is not needful to mold the bodies 
of babes by bandaging them in papoose fashion or 
otherwise — as in jails it is being discovered that no 
cunningly devised discipline of ours is so efficient in 
producing reformation as the natural discipline, the 
making prisoners maintain themselves by productive 
labor — so in education we are finding that success 
is to be achieved only by rendering our measures 
subservient to that spontaneous unfolding which all 
minds go through in their progress to maturity. 

Of course this fundamental principle of tuition, 
curriculum that the arrangement of matter and 
development, method must correspond with the order 
of evolution and mode of activity of the faculties — a 



CONFORMING TO NATURE 109 

principle so obviously true, that once stated it seems 
almost self-evident — has never been wholly disre- 
garded. Teachers have unavoidably made their 
school-courses coincide with it in some degree, for 
the simple reason that education is possible only on 
that condition. Boys were never taught the rule-of- 
three until after they had learnt addition. They 
were not set to write exercises before they had got 
into their copy-books. Conic sections have always 
been preceded by Euclid. 

But the error of the old methods consists in this, 
that they do not recognize in detail what they are 
obliged to recognize in the general. Yet the prin- 
ciple applies throughout. If from the time when a 
child is able to conceive two things as related in po- 
sition, years must elapse before it can form a true 
concept of the earth as a sphere made up of land and 
sea, covered with mountains, forests, rivers, and cities, 
revolving on its axis, and sweeping round the sun— 
if it gets from the one concept to the other by degrees 
— if the intermediate concepts which it forms are 
consecutively larger and more complicated — is it not 
manifest that there is a general succession through 
which only it can pass ; that each larger concept is 
made by the combination of smaller ones, and presup- 
poses them ; and that to present any of these com- 
pound concepts before the child is in possession of its 
constituent ones, is only less absurd than to present 
the final concept of the series before the initial one ? 



110 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION 

In the mastering of every subject some course of 
increasingly complex ideas has to be gone through. 
The evolution of the corresponding faculties consists 
in the assimilation of these ; which, in any true 
sense, is impossible without they are put into the 
mind in the normal order. And when this order is 
not followed, the result is that they are received 
with apathy or disgust, and that unless the pupil is 
intelligent enough to eventually fill up the gaps 
himself, they lie in his memory as dead facts, 
capable of being turned to little or no use. 

" But why trouble ourselves about any curriculum 
study must at a ^ ? " ** ma y ^ e asked. " If it be true 

be directed. that ^ mind jjj^ the body hag ft prede . 

termined course of evolution, — if it unfolds spon- 
taneously, — if its successive desires for this or that 
kind of information arise when these are severally 
required for its nutrition, — if there thus exists in 
itself a prompter to the right species of activity at 
the right time, why interfere in any way? Why 
not leave children ivholly to the discipline of nature ? 
— why not remain quite passive and let them get 
knowledge as they best can ? — why not be consistent 
throughout ? " 

This is an awkward looking question. Plausibly 
implying as it does, that a system of complete 
laissez-faire is the logical outcome of the doctrines 
set forth, it seems to furnish a disproof of them by 
reductio ad absurdum. In truth, however, they do 






CONFORMING TO NATURE 111 



not, when rightly understood, commit us to any 
such untenable position. 

A glance at the physical analogies will clearly 
show this. It is a general law of all life that the 
more complex the organism to be produced, the 
longer the period during which it is dependent on a 
parent organism for food and protection. The con- 
trast between the minute, rapidly-formed, and self- 
moving spore of a conferva, and the slowly developed 
seed of a tree, with its multiplied envelopes and 
large stock of nutriment laid by to nourish the germ 
during its first stages of growth, illustrates this law 
in its application to the vegetable world. Among 
animal organisms we may trace it in a series of con- 
trasts from the monad, whose spontaneously-divided 
halves are as self-sufficing the moment after their 
separation as was the original whole, up to man, 
whose offspring not only passes through a protracted 
gestation, and subsequently long depends on the 
breast for sustenance, but after that must have its 
food artificially administered ; must, after it has 
learned to feed itself, continue to have bread, cloth- 
ing, and shelter provided, and does not acquire the 
power of complete self-support until a time varying 
from fifteen to twenty years after its birth. 

Now this law applies to the mind as to the body. 
For mental pabulum, also, every higher creature, 
and especially man, is at first dependent on adult 
aid. Lackjng the ability to move about, the babe 



112 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION 

is as powerless to get materials on which to exercise 
its perceptions as it is to get supplies for its stomach. 
Unable to prepare its own food, it is in like manner 
unable to reduce many kinds of knowledge to a fit 
form for assimilation. The language through which 
all higher truths are to be gained it wholly derives 
from those surrounding it. And we see in such an 
example as the Wild Boy of Aveyron, the arrest of 
development that results when no help is received 
from parents and nurses. 

Thus, in providing from day to day the right 
kind of facts, prepared in the right manner, and 
giving them in due abundance at appropriate inter- 
vals, there is as much scope for active ministration 
to a child's mind as to its body. In either case it 
is the chief function of -parents to see that the condi- 
tions requisite to growth are maintained. And, as in 
supplying aliment, and clothing, and shelter, they 
may fulfil this function without at all interfering 
with the spontaneous development of the limbs and 
viscera either in their order or mode ; so they may 
supply sounds for imitation, objects for examination, 
books for reading, problems for solution ; and, if they 
use neither direct or indirect coercion, may do this 
without in any way disturbing the normal process 
of mental evolution ; or rather, may greatly facili- 
tate that process. Hence the admission of the doc- 
trines enunciated does not, as some might argue, 
involve the abandonment of all teaching, but leaves 



THE PESTALOZZIAN" SYSTEM 113 

ample room for an active and elaborate course of 
culture. 

Passing from generalities to special considerations, 
it is to be remarked that in practice, the The 
Pestalozzian system seems scarcely to system. 
have fulfilled the promise of its theory. We hear 
of children not at all interested in its lessons, — dis- 
gusted with them rather ; and, so far as we can 
gather, the Pestalozzian schools have not turned out 
any unusual proportion of distinguished men, — if 
even they have reached the average. 

We are not surprised at this. The success of 
every appliance depends mainly upon the intelli- 
gence with which it is used. It is a trite remark, 
that, having the choicest tools, an unskilful artisan 
will botch his work ; and bad teachers will fail even 
with the best methods. Indeed, the goodness of the 
method becomes in such case a cause of failure ; as, 
to continue the simile, the perfection of the tool be- 
comes in undisciplined hands a source of imperfec- 
tion in results. 

A simple, unchanging, almost mechanical routine 
of tuition may be carried out by the commonest in- 
tellects, with such small beneficial effect as it is 
capable of producing ; but a complete system, — a 
system as heterogeneous in its appliances as the 
mind in its faculties — a system proposing a special 
means for each special end, demands for its right 
employment powers such as few teachers possess. 



114 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION 

The mistress of a danie-school can hear spelling- 
lessons ; any hedge-schoolmaster can drill boys in 
the multiplication-table ; but to teach spelling 
rightly by using the powers of the letters instead of 
their names, or to instruct in numerical combina- 
tions by experimental synthesis, a modicum of un- 
derstanding is needful : and to pursue a like 
rational course throughout the entire range of studies, 
asks an amount of judgment, of invention, of in- 
tellectual sympathy, of analytical faculty, which 
we shall never see applied to it while the tutorial 
office is held in such small esteem. The true educa- 
tion is practicable only to the true philosopher. 

Judge, then, what prospect a philosophical method 
now has of being acted out ! Knowing so little as 
we yet do of Psychology, and ignorant as our teach- 
ers are of that little, what chance has a system 
which requires Psychology for its basis ? 

Further hindrance and discouragement has arisen 
from confounding the Pestalozzian principle with 
the forms in which it has been embodied. Because 
particular plans have not answered expectation, dis- 
credit has been cast upon the doctrine associated 
with them, no inquiry being made whether these 
plans truly conform to such doctrine. Judging as 
usual by the concrete rather than the abstract, men 
have blamed the theory for the bunglings of the 
practice. It is as though Papin's futile attempt to 
construct a steam-engine had been held to prove 



THE PESTALOZZI AN SYSTEM 115 

that steam could not be used as a motive power. 

Let it be constantly borne in mind that while 
right in his fundamental ideas Pestalozzi p es taiozzi's 
was not therefore right in all his applica- character - 
tions of them : and we believe the fact to be that he 
was often wrong. As described even by his ad- 
mirers, Pestalozzi was a man of partial intuitions, a 
man who had occasional flashes of insight, rather 
than a man of s) v stematic thought. His first great 
success at Stanz was achieved when he had no 
books or appliances of ordinary teaching, and when 
" the only object of his attention was to find out at 
each moment what instruction his children stood 
peculiarly in need of, and what was the best manner 
of connecting it with the knowledge they already 
possessed." Much of his power was due, not to 
calmly reasoned-out plans of culture, but to his pro- 
found sympathy, which gave him an instinctive 
perception of childish needs and difficulties. He 
lacked the ability logically to co-ordinate and develop 
the truths which he thus from time to time laid hold 
of, and had in great measure to leave this to his as- 
sistants, Kruesi, Tobler, Buss, Nieclerer, and Schmid. 

The result is that in their details, his own plans, 
and those vicariously devised, contain Hisincon . 
numerous crudities and inconsistencies. sistencies - 
His nursery-method, described in " The Mother's 
Manual ", beginning as it does with a nomenclature 
of the different parts of the body, and proceeding 



116- INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION 

next to specify their relative positions, and next 
their connections, may be proved not at all in ac- 
cordance with the initial stages of mental evolution. 
His process of teaching the mother tongue by formal 
exercises in the meanings of words and in the con- 
struction of sentences, is quite needless, and must 
entail on the pupil loss of time, labor, and happi- 
ness. His proposed mode of teaching geography is 
utterly unpestalozzian. And often where his plans 
are essentially sound they are either incomplete or 
vitiated by some remnant of the old regime. 

While, therefore, we would defend in its entire 
His principles extent the general doctrine which Pesta- 
methods. lozzi inaugurated, we think great evil 
likely to result from an uncritical reception of his 
specific devices. That tendency which mankind 
coustantly exhibit to canonize the forms and prac- 
tices along with which any great truth has been be- 
queathed to him, — their liability to prostrate their 
intellects before the prophet, and swear by his every 
word, — their proneness to mistake the clothing of 
the idea for the idea itself — renders it needful to 
insist strongly upon the distinction between the fun- 
damental principle of the Pestalozzian system, and 
the set of expedients devised for its practice : and to 
suggest that while the one may be considered as 
established, the other is probably nothing but an 
adumbration of the normal course. 

Indeed, on looking at the state of our knowledge 



THE THEORY OF EDUCATION 117 

we may be quite sure that this is the case. Before 
our educational methods can be made to harmonize 
in character and arrangement with the faculties in 
their mode and order of unfolding, it is first needful 
that we ascertain with some completeness how the 
faculties do unfold. At present our knowledge of 
the matter extends only to a few general notions. 
These general notions must be developed in detail, — 
must be transformed into a multitude of specific 
propositions, before we can be said to possess that 
science on which the art of education must be based. 
And then when we have definitely made out in 
what succession, and in what combinations the 
mental powers become active, it remains to choose 
out of the many possible ways of exercising each of 
them that which best conforms to its natural mode 
of action. Evidently, therefore, it is not to be sup- 
posed that even our most advanced modes of teach- 
ing are the right ones, or nearly the right ones. 

I. The Theory op Education 

Bearing in mind then this distinction between the 
principle and the practice of Pestalozzi, A scheme of 
and inferring from the grounds assigned educatlon - 
that the last must necessarily be very defective, the 
reader will rate at its true worth the dissatisfaction 
with the system which some have expressed, and 
will see that the due realization of the Pestalozzian 
idea remains to be achieved. Should he argue, 



118 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION 

however, from what has just been said that no such 
realization is at present practicable, and that all 
effort ought to be devoted to the preliminary in- 
quiry, we reply, that though it is not possible for a 
scheme of culture to be perfected either in matter or 
form until a rational Psychology has been estab- 
lished, it is possible, with the aid of certain guiding 
principles, to make empirical approximations to- 
wards a perfect scheme. To prepare the way for 
further research we will now specify these principles. 
Some of them have already been more or less dis- 
tinctly implied in the foregoing pages, but it will be 
well here to state them all in logical order. 

1. That in education we should proceed from the 
From simple simple to the complex is a truth which 
to complex, j^g a i wavs u, een t some extent acted 

upon ; not professedly, indeed, nor by any means 
consistently. The mind grows. Like all things 
that grow it progresses from the homogeneous to the 
heterogeneous, and a normal training system being 
an objective counterpart of this subjective process, 
must exhibit the like progression. 

Moreover, regarding it from this point of view, 
we may see that this formula has much wider appli- 
cations than at first appears. For its rationale in- 
volves not only that we should proceed from the 
single to the combined in the teaching of each 
branch of knowledge, but that we should do the 
like with knowledge as a whole. As the mind, con- 



THE PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 119 

sisting at first of but few active faculties, has its 
later-completed faculties successively awakened, and 
ultimately comes to have all its faculties in simul- 
taneous action, it follows that our teaching should 
begin with but few subjects at once, and successively 
adding to these, should finally carry on all subjects 
abreast — that not only in its details should educa- 
tion proceed from the simple to the complex, but in 
its ensemble also. 

2. To say that our lessons ought to start from the 
concrete and end in the abstract, may be From con- 
considered as in part a repetition of the abstract, 
foregoing. Nevertheless it is a maxim that needs 
to be stated : if with no other view, then with the 
view of showing in certain cases what are truly the 
simple and the complex. 

For unfortunately there has been much misun- 
derstanding on this point. General formulas which 
men have devised to express groups of details, and 
which have severally simplified their conceptions by 
uniting many facts into one fact, they have supposed 
must simplify the conceptions of the child also ; 
quite forgetting that a generalization is simple only 
in comparison with the whole mass of particular 
truths it comprehends — that it is more complex 
than any one of these truths taken singly — that 
only after many of these single truths have been 
acquired does the generalization ease the memory 
and help the reason — and that to the child not pos- 



120 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION 

sessing these single truths it is necessarily a mystery. 
Thus confounding two kinds of simplification, teach- 
ers have constantly erred by setting out with " first 
principles"; a proceeding essentially, though not 
apparently, at variance with the primary rule, 
which implies that the mind should be introduced 
to principles through the medium of examples, and 
so should be led from the particular to the general 
— from the concrete to the abstract. 

3. The education of the child must accord both 
_, . ,. :, in mode and arrangement with the educa- 

The indivia- o 

the raceha? ^ on of mankind as considered historically ; 
learned. or - n qj^qj. wor d Sj the genesis of knowl- 
edge in the individual must follow the same course 
as the genesis of knowledge in the race. To M. 
Comte we believe society owes the enunciation of 
this doctrine — a doctrine which we may accept 
without committing ourselves to his theory of the 
genesis of knowledge, either in its causes or its order. 
In support of this doctrine two reasons may be 
assigned, either of them sufficient to establish it. 
One is deducible from the law of hereditary trans- 
mission as considered in its wider consequences. 
For if it be true that men exhibit likeness to ancestry 
both in aspect and character — if it be true that cer- 
tain mental manifestations, as insanity, will occur in 
successive members of the same family at the same 
age — if, passing from individual cases in which the 
fraits of many dead ancestors mixing with those of 



THE PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 121 

a few living ones greatly obscure the law, we turn 
to national types, and remark how the contrasts be- 
tween them are persistent from age to age — if we 
remember that these respective types came from a 
common stock, and that hence the present marked 
differences between them must have arisen from the 
action of modifying circumstances upon successive 
generations who severally transmitted the accumu- 
lated effects to their descendants — if we find the 
differences to be now organic, so that the French 
child grows into a French man even when brought 
up among strangers — and if the general fact thus 
illustrated is true of the whole nature, intellect in- 
clusive — then it follows that if there be an order in 
which the human race has mastered its various 
kinds of knowledge, there will arise in every child 
an aptitude to acquire these kinds of knowledge in 
the same order. So that even were the order in- 
trinsically indifferent, it would facilitate education 
to lead the individual mind through the steps 
traversed by the general mind. 

But the order is not intrinsically indifferent, and 
hence the fundamental reason why education should 
be a repetition of civilization in little. It is alike 
provable that the historical sequence was, in its 
main outlines, a necessary one, and that the causes 
which determined it apply to the child as to the 
race. Not to specify these causes in detail, it will 
suffice here to point out that as the mind of human- 



122 



INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION 



ity placed in the midst of phenomena and striving 
to comprehend them, has, after endless comparisons, 
speculations, experiments, and theories, reached its 
present knowledge of each subject by a specific 
route, it may rationally be inferred that the rela- 
tionship between mind and phenomena is such as 
to prevent this knowledge from being reached by 
any other route, and that as each child's mind 
stands in this same relationship to phenomena, they 
can be accessible to it only through the same route. 
Hence in deciding upon the right method of educa- 
tion, an inquiry into the method of civilization will 
help to guide us. 

4. One of the conclusions to which such an in- 
rromempir- quiry leads is that in each branch of 
rational. instruction we should proceed from the 
empirical to the rational. A leading fact in human 
progress is, that every science is evolved out of its 
corresponding art. It results from the necessity we 
are under, both individually and as a race, of reach- 
ing the abstract by way of the concrete, that there 
must be practice and an accruing experience with 
its empirical generalizations before there can be 
science. Science is organized knowledge ; and be- 
fore knowledge can be organized some of it must 
first be possessed. 

Every study, therefore, should have a purely ex- 
perimental introduction ; and only after an ample 
fund of observations has been accumulated, should 



THE PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 123 

reasoning begin. As illustrative applications of 
this rule, we may instance the modern course of 
placing grammar, not before* language, but after it ; 
or the ordinary custom of prefacing perspective by 
practical drawing. By and by further applications 
of it will be indicated. 

5. A second corollary from the foregoing general 
principle, and one which cannot be too seif-devei- 
strenuously insisted upon, is, that in edu- couraged. 
cation the process of self-development should be 
encouraged to the fullest extent. Children should 
be led to make their own investigations and to draw 
their own inferences. They should be told as little 
as possible, and induced to discover as much as pos- 
sible. Humanity has progressed solely by self-in- 
struction ; and that to achieve the best results, each 
mind must progress somewhat after the same fashion, 
is continually proved by the marked success of self- 
made men. 

Those who have been brought up under the or- 
dinary school-drill, and have carried away with 
them the idea that education is practicable only in 
that style, will think it hopeless to make children 
their own teachers. If, however, they will call to 
mind that the all-important knowledge of surround- 
ing objects which a child gets in its early years is 
got without help — if they will remember that the 
child is self-taught in the use of its mother tongue 
— if they will estimate the amount of that experience 



124 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION 

of life, that out-of-school wisdom, which every boy 
gathers for himself — if they will mark the unusual 
intelligence of the uncared' for Loudon gamin, as 
shown in all the directions in which his faculties 
have been tasked — if further, they will think how 
many minds have struggled up unaided, not only 
through the mysteries of our irrationally-planned 
curriculum, but through hosts of other obstacles be- 
sides — they will find it a not unreasonable conclu- 
sion, that if the subjects be put before him in right 
order and right form, any pupil of ordinary capacity 
will surmount his successive difficulties with but 
little assistance. 

Who indeed can watch the ceaseless observation, 
and inquiry, and inference going on in a child's 
mind, or listen to its acute remarks on matters 
within the range of its faculties, without perceiving 
that these powers which it manifests, if brought to 
bear systematically upon any studies within the same 
range, would readily master them without help? 
This need for perpetual telling is the result of our 
stupidity, not of the child's. We drag it away from 
the facts in which it is interested, and which it is 
actively assimilating of itself ; we put before it facts 
far too complex for it to understand, and therefore 
distasteful to it ; finding that it will not voluntarily 
acquire these facts, we thrust them into its mind by 
force of threats and punishment ; by thus denying 
the knowledge it craves, and cramming it with 



THE PRINCIPLES OP EDUCATION 125 

knowledge it cannot digest, we produce a morbid 
state of its faculties, and a consequent disgust for 
knowledge in general ; and when, as a result partly 
of the stolid indolence we have brought on, and 
partly of still continued unfitness in its studies, the 
child can understand nothing without explanation, 
and becomes a mere passive recipient of our instruc- 
tion, we infer that education must necessarily be 
carried on thus. Having by our method induced 
helplessness, we straightway make the helplessness 
a reason for our method. 

Clearly then the experience of pedagogues cannot 
rationally be quoted against the doctrine we are de- 
fending. And whoever sees this will see that we 
may safely follow the method of nature throughout 
—may, by a skilful ministration, make the mind as 
self-developing in its later stages as it is in its 
earlier ones — and that only by doing this can we 
produce the highest power and activity. 

6. As a final test by which to judge any plan of 
culture, should come the question, — Does study made 
it create a pleasurable excitement in the en J°y able - 
pupils ? When in doubt whether a particular mode or 
arrangement is or is not more in harmony with the 
foregoing principles than some other, we may safely 
abide by this criterion. Even when, as considered 
theoretically, the proposed course seems the best, 
yet if it produce no interest, or less interest than 
another course, we should relinquish it ; for a 



126 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION 

child's intellectual instincts are more trustworthy 
than our reasonings. . 

In respect to the knowing faculties we may con- 
fidently trust in the general law, that under normal 
conditions, healthful action is pleasurable, while 
action which gives pain is not healthful. Though 
at present very incompletely conformed to by the 
emotional nature, yet by the intellectual nature, 
or at least by those parts of it which the child 
exhibits, this law is almost wholly conformed to. 
The repugnances to this and that study which 
vex the ordinary teacher, are not innate, but re- 
sult from his unwise system. Fellenberg says, " Ex- 
perience has taught me that indolence in young 
persons is so directly opposite to their natural dis- 
position to activity, that unless it is the conse- 
quence of bad education, it is almost invariably 
connected with some constitutional defect." And 
the spontaneous activity to which children are thus 
prone, is simply the pursuit of those pleasures which 
the healthful exercise of the faculties gives. 

It is true that some of the higher mental powers 
as yet but little developed in the race, and con- 
genitally possessed in any considerable degree only 
by the most advanced, are indisposed to the amount 
of exertion required of them. But these, in virtue 
of their very complexity, will, in a normal course of 
culture, come last into exercise, and will therefore 
have no demands made upon them until the ]3upil 



THE PRACTICE OF EDUCATION 127 

has arrived at an age when ulterior motives can 
be brought into play, and an indirect pleasure made 
to counterbalance a direct displeasure. 

With all faculties lower than these, however, the 
direct gratification consequent on activity is the 
normal stimulus, and under good management the 
only needful stimulus. When we are obliged to fall 
back upon some other we must take the fact as 
evidence that we are on the wrong track. Exper- 
ience is daily showing with greater clearness that 
there is always a method to be found productive of 
interest — even of delight — and it ever turns out 
that this is the method proved by all other tests to 
be the right one. 

II. The Practice of Education 

With most, these guiding principles will weigh 
but little if left in this abstract form. Partly, there- 
fore, to exemplify their application, and partly with 
a view of making sundry specific suggestions, we 
propose now to pass from the theory of education to 
the practice of it. 

It was the opinion of Pestalozzi — an opinion which 
has ever since his day been gaining Beginsin 
ground — that education of some kind thecradle - 
should begin from the cradle. Whoever has watched 
with any discernment, the wide-eyed gaze of the 
infant at surrounding objects, knows very well that 
education does begin thus early, whether we intend 



128 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION 

it or not, and that these fingerings and suckings of 
every thing it can lay hold of, these open-mouthed 
listenings to every sound, are the first steps in the 
series which ends in the discovery of unseen planets, 
the invention of calculating engines, the production 
of great paintings, or the composition of symphonies 
and operas. This activity of the faculties from the 
very first being spontaneous and inevitable, the 
question is whether we shall supply in due variety 
the materials on which they may exercise them- 
selves ; and to the question so put, none but an 
affirmative answer can be given. 

As before said, however, agreement with Pesta- 
How Pesta- lozzi's theory does not involve agreement 

lozzi taught .,-, ,. ,• i i 

spelling. with his practice ; ana here occurs a case 
in point. Treating of instruction in spelling he says : 

" The spelling-book ought, therefore, to contain all 
the sounds of the language, and these ought to be 
taught in every family from the earliest infancy. 
The child who learns his spelling-book ought to re- 
peat them to the infant in the cradle, before it is 
able to pronounce even one of them, so that they 
may be deeply impressed upon its mind by frequent 
repetition." 

Joining this with the suggestions for " a nursery- 
method ", as set down in his "Mother's Manual", 
in which he makes the names, positions, connections, 
numbers, properties, and uses of the limbs and body 
his first lessons, it becomes clear that Pestalozzi's 



THE PRACTICE OF EDUCATION 129 

notions on early mental development were too crude 
to enable him to devise judicious plans. Let us 
inquire into the course which Psychology dictates. 
The earliest impressions which the mind can as- 
similate, are those given to it by the what 

-. -, -, ,. . , psychology 

unclecomposable sensations — resistance, directs, 
light, sound, etc. Manifestly decomposable states 
of consciousness cannot exist before the states of 
consciousness out of which they are composed. 
There can be no idea of form until some familiarity 
with light in its gradations and qualities, or resist- 
ance in its different intensities, has been acquired ; 
for, as has been long known, we recognize visible 
form by means of varieties of light, and tangible 
form by means of varieties of resistance. Similarly, 
no articulate sound is cognizable until the inarticu- 
late sounds which go to make it up have been 
learned. And thus must it be in every other case. 
Following, therefore, the necessary law of progres- 
sion from the simple to the complex, we should pro- 
vide for the infant a sufficiency of objects presenting 
different degrees and kinds of resistance, a sufficiency 
of objects reflecting different amounts and qualities 
of light, and a sufhcienc} r of sounds contrasted in 
their loudness, their pitch, and their timbre. How 
fully this a priori conclusion is confirmed by infan- 
tile instincts all will see on being reminded of the 
delight which every young child has in biting its 
toys, in feeling its brother's bright jacket-buttons, 



130 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION 

and pulling papa's whiskers — how absorbed it be- 
comes in gazing at any gaudily painted object, to 
which it applies the word "pretty", when it can 
pronounce it, wholly in virtue of the bright colors — 
and how its face broadens into a laugh at the tat- 
tlings of its nurse, the snapping of a visitor's fingers, 
or any sound which it has not before heard. 

Fortunately, the ordinary practices of the nursery 
fulfil these early requirements of education to a 
considerable degree. Much, however, remains to be 
done, and it is of more importance that it should be 
done than at first appears. Every faculty during 
the period of its greatest activity — the period in 
which it is spontaneously evolving itself — is capable 
of receiving more vivid impressions than at any 
other period. Moreover, as these simplest elements 
must eventually be mastered, and as the mastery of 
them whenever achieved must take time, it becomes 
an economy of time to occupy this first stage of child- 
hood, during which no other intellectual action is 
possible, in gaining a complete familiarity with them 
in all their modifications. Add to which, that both 
temper and health will be improved by the continual 
gratification resulting from a due supply of these 
impressions which every child so greedily assimilates. 

Space, could it be spared, might here be well filled 
by some suggestions toward a more systematic min- 
istration to these simplest of the perceptions. But 
it must suffice to point out that any such ministra- 



THE PRACTICE OF EDUCATION 131 

tiou ought to be based upon the general truth that 
in the development of every faculty, markedly con- 
trasted impressions are the first to be distinguished : 
that hence sounds greatly differing in loudness and 
pitch, colors very remote from each other, and sub- 
stances widely unlike in hardness or texture, should 
be the first supplied ; and that in each case the pro- 
gression must be by slow degress to impressions more 
nearly allied. 

Passing on to object-lessons, which manifestly 
form a natural continuation of this j)ri- obiect . 
mary culture of the senses, it is to be re- lessons - 
marked that the system commonly pursued is wholly 
at variance with the method of nature, as alike 
exhibited in infancy, in adult life, and in the 
course of civilization. " The child," says M. Marcel, 
"must be shown how all the parts of an object are 
connected, etc.; " and the various manuals of these 
object-lessons severally contain lists of the facts 
which the child is to be told respecting each of the 
things put before it. 

Now it needs but a glance at the daily life of the 
infant to see that all the knowledge of things which 
is gained before the acquirement of speech, is self- 
gained — that the qualities of hardness and weight 
associated with certain visual appearances, the pos- 
session of particular forms and colors by particular 
persons, the production of special sounds by animals 
of special aspects, are phenomena which it observes 



132 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION 

for itself. In manhood too, when there are no longer 
teachers at hand, the observations and inferences 
required for daily guidance, must be made unhelped, 
and success in life depends upon the accuracy and 
completeness with which they are made. 

Is it probable then, that while the process dis- 
played in the evolution of humanity at large is 
repeated alike by the infant and the man, a reverse 
process must be followed during the period between 
infancy and manhood? and that too, even in so 
simple a thing as learning the properties of objects? 
Is it not obvious, on the contrary, that one method 
must be pursued throughout ? And is not nature 
perpetually thrusting this method upon us, if we had 
but the wit to see it, and the humility to adopt it ? 

What can be more manifest than the desire of 
children for intellectual sympathy ? Mark how the 
infant sitting on your knee thrusts into your face 
the toy it holds, that you too may look at it. See 
when it makes a creak with its wet finger on the 
table, how it turns and looks at you ; does it again, 
and again looks at you ; thus saying as clearly as it 
can — " Hear this new sound." Watch how the 
elder children come into the room exclaiming — 
" Mamma, see what a curious thing," "Mamma, 
look at this," " Mamma, look at that ; " and would 
continue the habit, did not the silly mamma tell 
them not to tease her. Observe how, when out with 
the nurse-maid, each little one runs up to her with 



THE PRACTICE OF EDUCATION 133 

the new flower it has gathered, to show her how 
pretty it is, and to get her also to say it is pretty. 
Listen to the eager volubility with which every 
urchin describes any novelty he has been to see, if 
only he can find some one who will attend with any 
interest. 

Does not the induction lie on the surface ? Is it 
not clear that we must conform our course to these 
intellectual instincts — that we must just systematize 
the natural process — that we must listen to all the 
child has to tell us about each object, must induce 
it to say everything it can think of about such object, 
must occasionally draw its attention to facts it has 
not yet observed, with the view of leading it to notice 
them itself whenever they recur, and must go on by 
and by to indicate or supply new series of things for 
a like exhaustive examination ? 

See the way in which, on this method, the intelli- 
gent mother conducts her lessons. Step by step she 
familiarizes her little boy with the names of the 
simpler attributes, hardness, softness, color, taste, 
size, etc., in doing which she finds him eagerly help 
by bringing this to show her that it is red, and the 
other to make her feel that it is hard, as fast as she 
gives him words for these properties. Each addi- 
tional property, as she draws his attention to it in some 
fresh thing which he brings her, she takes care to 
mention in connection with those he already knows, 
so that by the natural tendency to imitate, he may 



134 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION 

get into the habit of repeating them one after 
another. 

Gradually as there occnr cases in which he omits 
to name one or more of the properties he has become 
acquainted with, she introduces the practice of ask- 
ing him whether there is not something more that 
he can tell her abont the thing he has got. Prob- 
ably he does not understand. After letting him 
puzzle awhile she tells him ; perhaps laughing at 
him a little for his failure. A few recurrences of 
this and he j:>receives what is to be done. When 
next she says she knows something more about the 
object than he has told her, his pride is roused ; he 
looks at it intently ; thinks over all that he has 
heard, and the problem being easy, presently finds it 
out. He is full of glee at his success, and she sym- 
pathizes with him. In common with every child, he 
delights in the discovery of his powers. He wishes 
for more victories, and goes in quest for more things 
about which to tell her. 

As his faculties unfold she adds quality after 
quality to his list : progressing from hardness and 
softness to roughness and smoothness, from color to 
polish, from simple bodies to composite ones — thus 
constantly complicating the problem as he gains com- 
petence, constantly taxing his attention and memory 
to a greater extent, constantly maintaining his inter- 
est by supplying him with new impressions such as 
his mind can assimilate, and constantly gratifying 



THE PRACTICE OF EDUCATION 135 

him by conquests over such small difficulties as he can 
master. In doing this she is manifestly but follow- 
ing out that spontaneous process that was going on 
during a still earlier period — simply aiding self- 
evolution — and is aiding it in the mode suggested 
by the boy's instinctive behavior to her. 

Manifestly, too, the course she is pursuing is the 
one best calculated to establish a habit of exhaustive 
observation ; which is the professed aim of these 
lessons. To tell a child this and to show it the 
other, is not to teach it how to observe, but to make 
it a mere recipient of another's observations : a pro- 
ceeding which weakens rather than strengthens its 
powers of self-instruction — which deprives it of the 
pleasures resulting from successful activity — which 
presents this all-attractive knowledge under the 
aspect of formal tuition — and which thus generates 
that indifference and even disgust with which these 
object-lessons are not unfrequently regarded. 

On the other hand, to pursue the course above 
described is simply to guide the intellect to its appro- 
priate food ; to join with the intellectual appetites 
their natural adjuncts — amour propre and the desire 
for sympathy ; to induce by the union of all these an 
intensity of attention which insures perceptions alike 
vivid and complete, and to habituate the mind from 
the beginning to that practice of self-help which it 
must ultimately follow. 

Object-lessons should not only be carried on after 



136 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION 

quite a different fashion from that commonly pur- 
object- sued, but should be extended to a range 

extended. of things far wider, and continue to a 
period far later, than now. They should not be 
limited to the. contents of the house, but should 
include those of the fields and the hedges, the 
quarry and the sea-shore. They should not cease 
with early childhood, but should be so kept up dur- 
ing youth as insensibly to merge into the investiga- 
tions of the naturalist and the man of science. 

Here again we have but to follow nature's lead- 
ings. Where can be seen an intenser delight than 
that of children picking up new flowers and watch- 
ing new insects, or hoarding pebbles and shells? 
And who is there but perceives that by sympathiz- 
ing with them they may be led on to any extent of 
inquiry into the qualities and structures of these 
things ? Every botanist who has had children with 
him in the woods and the lanes must have noticed 
how eagerly they joined in his pursuits, how keenly 
they searched out plants for him, how intently they 
watched whilst he examined them, how they over- 
whelmed him with questions. 

The consistent follower of Bacon — the " servant 
and interpreter of nature", will see that we ought 
modestly to adopt the course of culture thus indicated. 
Having gained due familiarity with the simpler 
properties of inorganic objects, the child should by 
the same process be led on to a like exhaustive 



THE PRACTICE OF EDUCATION 137 

examination of the things it picks up in its daily 
walks — the less complex facts they present being 
alone noticed at first : in plants, the color, number 
and forms of the 23etals and shapes of the stalks and 
leaves : in insects, the number of wings, legs, and 
antennae, and their colors. 

As these become fully appreciated and invariably 
observed, further facts may be successively intro- 
duced : in the one case, the numbers of stamens and 
pistils, the forms of the flowers, whether radical or 
bilateral in symmetry, the arrangement and charac- 
ter of the leaves, whether opposite or alternate, 
stalked or sessile, smooth or hairy, serrated, toothed, 
or crenate ; in the other, the divisions of the body, 
the segments of the abdomen, the markings of a the 
wings, the number of joints in the legs, and the 
forms of the smaller organs — the system pursued 
throughout being that of making it the child's 
ambition to say respecting everything it finds, all 
that can be said. 

Then when a fit age has been reached, the means 
of preserving these plants which have become so 
interesting in virtue of the knowledge obtained of 
them, may as a great favor be supplied ; and event- 
ually, as a still greater favor, may also be supplied 
the apparatus needful for keeping the larvae of our 
common butterflies and moths through their trans- 
formations — a practice which, as we can personally 
testify, yields the highest gratification ; is continued 



138 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION 

with ardor for years ; when joined with the forma- 
tion of an entomological collection, adds immense 
interest to Saturday afternoon rambles, and forms an 
admirable introduction to the study of physiology. 
We are quite prepared to hear from many that all 
value of this this is throwing away time and energy, 
knowledge. an( j t ] lat children wculd be much better 
occupied in writing their copies or learning their 
pence-tables, and so fitting themselves for the busi- 
ness of life. 

We regret that such crude ideas of what consti- 
tutes education and such a narrow conception of 
utility, should still be generally prevalent. Saying 
nothing on the need for a systematic culture of the 
perceptions and the value of the practices above 
inculcated as subserving that need, we are prepared 
to defend them even on the score of the knowledge 
gained. If men are to be mere cits, mere porers 
over ledgers, with no ideas beyond their trades — if 
it is well that they should be as the cockney whose 
conception of rural pleasures extends no further 
than sitting in a tea-garden smoking pipes and 
drinking porter ; or as the squire who thinks of 
woods as places for shooting in, of uncultivated 
plants as nothing but weeds, and who classifies ani- 
mals into game, vermin, and stock — then indeed it 
is needless for men to learn anything that does not 
directly help to replenish the till and fill the larder. 
But if there is a more worthy aim for us than to be 



THE PRACTICE OF EDUCATION 139 

drudges — if there are other uses in the things around 
us than their power to bring money — if there are 
higher faculties to be exercised than acquisitive and 
sensual ones — if the pleasures which poetry and art 
and science and philosophy can bring are of any 
moment — then is it desirable that the instinctive 
inclination which every child shows to observe 
natural beauties and investigate natural phenomena 
should be encouraged. 

But this gross utilitarianism which is content to 
come into the world and quit it again without 
knowing what kind of a world it is or what it con- 
tains, may be met on its own ground. It will by 
and by be found that a knowledge of the laws of 
life is more important than an}^ other knowledge 
whatever — that the laws of life include not only all 
bodily and mental processes, but by implication all 
the transactions of the house and the street, all com- 
merce, all politics, all morals — and that therefore 
without a due acquaintance w T ith them neither per- 
sonal nor social conduct can be rightly regulated. 

It will eventually be seen too, that the laws of 
life are essentially the same throughout the whole 
organic creation, and further, that they cannot be 
properly understood in their complex manifestations 
until they have been studied in their simpler ones. 
And when this is seen, it will be also seen that in 
aiding the child to acquire the out-of-door informa- 
tion for which it shows so great an avidity, and in 



140 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION 

encouraging the acquisition of such information 
throughout youth, weare simply inducing it to store 
up the raw material for future organization — the 
facts that will one day bring home to it with due 
force those great generalizations of science by which 
actions may he rightly guided. 

The spreading recognition of drawing as an ele- 
ment of education, is one amongst many 

Drawing. . . . 

signs oi the more rational views on men- 
tal culture now beginning to prevail. Once more it 
may be remarked that teachers are at length adopt- 
ing the course which nature has for ages been pres- 
sing upon their notice. The spontaneous efforts 
made by children to represent the men, houses, trees, 
and animals around them — on a slate if they can 
get nothing better, or with lead-pencil on paper, if 
they can beg them — are familiar to all. To be 
shown through a picture-book is one of their highest 
gratifications, and as usual, their strong imitative 
tendency presently generates in them the ambition 
to make pictures themselves also. This attempt to 
depict the striking things they see is a further 
instinctive exercise of the perceptions — a means 
whereby still greater accuracy and completeness of 
observation is induced. And alike by seeking to 
interest us in their discoveries of the sensible pro- 
perties of things, and by their endeavors to draw, 
they solicit from us just that kind of culture which 
they most need. 



THE PRACTICE OF EDUCATION . 141 

Had teachers been guided by nature's hints, not 
only in the making of drawing a part of 
education, but in the choice of their modes 
of teaching it, they would have done still better than 
they have done. What is it that the child first tries 
to represent? Things that are large, things that 
are attractive in color, things around which its 
pleasurable associations most cluster — human beings 
from whom it has received so many emotions, cows 
and dogs which interest by the many phenomena 
they present, houses that are hourly visible and 
strike by their size and contrast of parts. And 
which of all the processes of representation gives it 
most delight? Coloring. Paper and pencil are 
good in default of something better ; but a box of 
paints and a brush — these are the treasures. The 
drawing of outlines immediately becomes secondary 
to coloring — is gone through mainly with a view to 
the coloring ; and if leave can be got to color a book 
of prints, how great is the favor ! 

Now, ridiculous as such a position will seem to 
drawing-masters, who postpone coloring and who 
teach form by a dreary discipline of copying lines, 
we believe that the course of culture thus indicated 
is the right one. That priority of color to form, 
which, as already pointed out, has a psychological 
basis, and in virtue of which psychological basis 
arises this strong preference in the child, should be 
recognized from the very beginning ; and from the 



142 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION 

very beginning also the things imitated should be 
real. That greater delight in color which is not 
only conspicuous in children but persists in most 
persons throughout life, should be continuously 
employed as the natural stimulus to the mastery of 
the comparatively difficult and unattractive form — 
should be the prospective reward for the achieve- 
ment of form. 

And these instinctive attempts to represent inter- 
esting actualities should be all along encouraged, 
in the conviction that as, by a widening experience, 
smaller and more practicable objects become inter- 
esting, they too will be attempted, and that so a 
gradual approximation will be made towards imita- 
tions having some resemblance to the realities. No 
matter how grotesque the shapes produced ; no mat- 
ter how daubed and glaring the colors. The ques- 
tion is not whether the child is producing good 
drawings ; the question is, whether it is developing 
its faculties. It has first to gain some command 
over its fingers, some crude notions of likeness ; and 
this practice is better than any other for these ends, 
seeing that it is the spontaneous and the interesting- 
one. 

During these early years, be it remembered, no 
formal drawing-lessons are possible : shall we there- 
fore repress, or neglect to aid, these efforts at self- 
culture ? or shall Ave encourage and guide them as 
normal exercises of the perceptions and the powers 



THE PRACTICE OF EDUCATION 143 

of manipulation ? If by the supply of cheap wood- 
cuts to be colored, and simple contour-maps to have 
their boundary lines tinted, we can not only pleasur- 
ably draw out the faculty of color, but can inci- 
dentally produce some familiarity with the outlines 
of things and countries, and some ability to move the 
brush steadily ; and if by the supply of temptingly- 
painted objects we can keep up the instinctive prac- 
tice of making representations, however rough, it 
must happen that by the time drawing is commonly 
commenced there will exist a facility that would 
else have been absent. Time will have been gained, 
and trouble both to teacher and pujDil saved. 

From all that has been said it may be readily in- 
ferred that we wholly disapprove of the Ge0 metricai 
practice of drawing from copies, and still drawm s- 
more so of that formal discipline in making straight 
lines and curved lines and compound lines, with 
which it is the fashion of some teachers to begin. 
We regret to find that the Society of Arts has re- 
cently, in its series of manuals on " Rudimentary 
Art-Instruction ", given its countenance to an elemen- 
tary drawing-book which is the most vicious in 
principle that we have seen. We refer to the " Out- 
line from Outline, or from the Flat ", by John Bell, 
sculptor. As expressed in the prefatory note, this 
publication proposes " to place before the student a 
simple, yet logical mode of instruction " ; and to 
this end sets out with a number of definitions thus : — 



144 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION 

A simple line in drawing is a thin mark drawn 
from one point to another. 

Lines may be divided, as to their nature in draw- 
ing, into two classes : — 

1. Straight, which are marks that go the shortest 
road between two points, as A B. 

2. Or Curved, which are marks which do not go 
the shortest road between two points, as C D. 

And so the introduction progresses to horizontal 
lines, perpendicular lines, angles of the several kinds, 
and the various figures which lines and angles make 
up. The work is, in short, a grammar of form, 
with exercises. And thus the system of commenc- 
ing with a dry analysis of elements, which, in the 
teaching of language, has been exploded, is to be 
re-instituted in the teaching of drawing. The ab- 
stract is to be preliminary to the concrete. Scientific 
conceptions are to precede empirical experiences. 

That this is an inversion of the normal order, we 
need scarcely repeat. It has been well said concern- 
ing the custom of prefacing the art of speaking any 
tongue by a drilling in the parts of speech and their 
functions, that it is about as reasonable as prefacing 
the art of walking by a course of lessons on the 
bones, muscles, and nerves of the legs ; and much 
the same thing may be said of the proposal to pre- 
face the art of representing objects by a nomenclature 
and definitions of the lines which they yield on 
analysis. 



THE PRACTICE OF EDUCATION 145 

These technicalities are alike repulsive and need- 
less. They render the study distasteful at the very 
outset, and all with the view of teaching that, which, 
in the course of practice, will he learnt unconscious- 
ly. Just as the child incidentally gathers the mean- 
ings of ordinary words from the conversations going 
on around it, without the help of dictionaries, so, 
from the remarks on objects, pictures, and its own 
drawings, will it presently acquire, not only without 
effort but even pleasurably, those same scientific 
terms, which, if presented at first, are a mystery 
and a weariness. 

If any dependence is to be placed upon the gen- 
eral principles of education that have been 

PcrsDGctivG 

laid down, the process of learning to draw 
should be throughout continuous with those efforts 
of early childhood described above as so worthy of 
encouragement. By the time that the voluntary 
practice thus initiated has given some steadiness of 
hand and some tolerable ideas of proportion, there 
will have arisen a vague notion of body as present- 
ing its three dimensions in perspective. And when, 
after sundry abortive, Chinese-like attempts to ren- 
der this appearance on paper, there has grown up a 
pretty clear perception of the thing to be achieved, and 
a desire to achieve it, a first lesson in empirical per- 
spective may be given by means of the apparatus occa- 
sionally used in explaining perspective as a science. 
This sounds formidable, but the experiment is 



146 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION 

both comprehensive and interesting to any boy or 
girl of ordinary intelligence. A plate of glass so 
framed as to stand vertically on the table, being 
placed before the pupil, and a book or like simple 
object laid on the other side of it, he is requested, 
whilst keeping the eye in one position, to make ink 
dots upon the glass so that they may coincide with 
or hide the corners of this object. He is then told 
to join these dots by lines, on doing which he per- 
ceives that the lines he makes hide, or coincide with, 
the outlines of the object. And then on being asked 
to put a sheet of paper on the other side of the glass, 
he discovers that the lines he has thus drawn repre- 
sent the object as he saw it. They not only look 
like it, but he perceives that they must be like it, 
because he made them agree with its outlines, and 
by removing the paper he can repeatedly convince 
himself that they do agree with its outlines. 

The fact is new and striking and serves him as an 
experimental demonstration that lines of certain 
lengths, placed in certain directions on a plane, can 
represent lines of other lengths and having other 
directions in space. Subsequently, by gradually 
changing the position of the object, he may be led 
to observe how some lines shorten and disappear 
whilst others come into sight and lengthen. The 
convergence of parallel lines, and indeed all the 
leading facts of perspective may, from time to tune, 
be similarly illustrated to him. 



THE PRACTICE OP EDUCATION 147 

If he has been duly accustomed to self-help he 
will gladly, when it is suggested, make the attempt 
to draw one of these outlines upon paper by the eye 
only, and it may soon be made an exciting aim to 
produce, unassisted, a representation as like as he 
can to one subsequently sketched on the glass. 
Thus, without the unintelligent, mechanical practice 
of copying other drawings, but by a method at once 
simple and attractive — rational, yet not abstract — a 
familiarity with the linear appearances of things, and 
a faculty of rendering them, may be, step by step, 
acquired. 

To which advantages acid these : — that even thus 
early the pupil learns almost unconsciously the true 
theory of a picture — namely, that it is a delineation 
of objects as they appear when projected on a plane 
placed between them and the eye, and that when he 
reaches a fit age for commencing scientific perspec- 
tive he is already thoroughly acquainted with the 
facts which form its logical basis. 

As exhibiting a rational mode of communicating 
primary conceptions in geometry, we can- Mr Wyse , s 
not do better than quote the following suggestions. 
passage from Mr. Wyse : — 

" A child has been in the habit of using cuoes for 
arithmetic ; let him use them also for the elements 
of geometry. I would begin with solids, the reverse 
of the usual plan. It saves all the difficulty of absurd 
definitions, and bad explanations on points, lines, 



148 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION" 

and surfaces, which are nothing but abstractions. 
* * * A cube presents many of the principal 
elements of geometry ; it at once exhibits points, 
straight lines, parallel lines, angles, parallelograms, 
etc., etc. These cubes are divisible into various 
parts. The pupil has already been familiarized 
with such divisions in numeration, and he now pro- 
ceeds to a comparison of their several parts, and of 
the relation of these parts to each other. * * * 
From thence he advances to globes, which furnish 
him with elementary notions of the circle, of curves 
generally, etc., etc. 

" Being tolerably familiar with solids, he may now 
substitute planes. The transition may be made 
very easy. Let the cube, for instance, be cut into 
thin divisions, and placed on paper ; he will then 
see as many plane rectangles as lie has divisions ; 
so with all the others. Globes may be treated in 
the same manner ; he will thus see how surfaces 
really are generated, and be enabled to abstract 
them with facility in every solid. 

" He has thus acquired the alphabet and reading 
of geometry. He now proceeds to write it. 

" The simplest operation, and therefore the first, is 
merely to place these planes on a piece of paper, and 
pass the pencil round them. When this has been 
frequently done the plane may be put at a little 
distance, and the child required to copy it, and 
so on." 



THE PRACTICE OF EDUCATION 149 

A stock of geometrical conceptions having been 
obtained, in some such manner as this 
recommended by Mr. Wyse, a further 
step may, in course of time, be taken, by introduc- 
ing the practice of testing the correctness of all 
figures drawn by the eye, thus alike exciting an 
ambition to make them exact, and continually illus- 
trating the difficulty of fulfilling that ambition. 

There can be little doubt that geometry had its 
origin (as, indeed, the word implies) in the methods 
discovered by artisans and others of making accu- 
rate measurement for the foundations of buildings, 
areas of inclosures, and the like, and that its truths 
came to be treasured jip merely with a view to their 
immediate utility. They should be introduced to 
the pupil under analogous relationships. In the 
cutting out of pieces for his card-houses, in the 
drawing of ornamental diagrams for coloring, and 
in those various instructive occupations which an 
inventive teacher will lead him into, he may be for 
a length of time advantageously left, like the primi- 
tive builder, to tentative processes, and will so gain 
an abundant experience of the difficulty of achiev- 
ing his aims by the unaided senses. 

When, having* meanwhile undergone a valuable 
discipline of the perceptions, he has reached a fit 
age for using a pair of compasses, he will, whilst 
duly appreciating these as enabling him to verify 
his ocular guesses, be still hindered by the difficul- 



150 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION 

ties of the approximative method. In this stage he 
may be left for a further period : partly as being 
yet too young for anything higher ; partly because 
it is desirable that he should be made to feel still 
more strongly the want of systematic contrivances. 
If the acquisition of knowledge is to be made con- 
tinuously interesting, and if, in the early civilization 
of the child, as in the early civilization of the race, 
science becomes attractive only as ministering to 
art, it is. manifest that the proper preliminary to 
geometry is a long practice in those constructive 
processes which geometry will facilitate. 

Observe that here, too, nature points the way. 
Almost invariably, children show a strong propen- 
sity to cut out things in paper, to make, to build — a 
propensity which, if duly encouraged and directed, 
will not only prepare the way for scientific concep- 
tions, but will develop those powers of manipulation 
in which most people are so deficient. 

When the observing and inventive faculties have 
inventionai attained the requisite power, the pupil 
geometry. may be introduced to empirical geometry, 
that is — geometry dealing with methodical solutions, 
but not with the demonstrations of them. Like all 
other transitions in education, this should be made 
not formally but incidentally, and the relationship 
to constructive art should still be maintained. 

To make a tetrahedron in cardboard like one 
given to him is a problem which will alike interest 



THE PRACTICE OF EDUCATION 151 

the pupil and serve as a convenient starting-point. 
In attempting this he finds it needful to draw four 
equilateral triangles arranged in special positions. 
Being unable in the absence of an exact method to do 
this accurately, he discovers on putting the triangles 
into their respective positions that he can not make 
their sides fit and that their angles do not properly 
meet at the apex. He may now be shown how by 
describing a couple of circles, each of these triangles 
may be drawn with perfect correctness and without 
guessing, and after his failure he will duly value the 
information. 

Having thus helped him to the solution of his 
first problem, with the view of illustrating the nature 
of geometrical methods, he is in future to be left 
altogether to his own ingenuity in solving the ques- 
tions put to him. To bisect a line, to erect a per- 
pendicular, to describe a square, to bisect an angle, 
to draw a line parallel to a given line, to describe a 
hexagon, are problems which a little patience will 
enable him to find out. And from these he may be 
led on step by step to questions of a more complex 
kind, all of which, under judicious management, he 
will puzzle through unhelped. 

Doubtless many of those brought up under the 
old regime will look upon this assertion sceptically. 
We speak from facts, however, and those neither 
few nor special. We have seen a class of boys 
become so interested in making out solutions to 



152 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION 

these problems as to look forward to their geometry- 
lesson as a chief event of the week. Within the 
last month, we haA^e been told of one girls' school, 
in which some of the young ladies voluntarily occu- 
pied themselves with geometrical questions out of 
school-hours ; and of another, in which they not 
only do this, but in which one of them is begging 
for problems to find out during the holidays — both 
which facts we state on the authority of the teacher. 
There could indeed be no stronger proofs than are 
thus afforded of the practicability and the immense 
advantage of self-development. A branch of knowl- 
edge which as commonly taught is dry and even 
repulsive, may, by following the method of nature, 
be made extremely interesting and profoundly 
beneficial. 

We say profoundly beneficial, because the effects 
are not confined to the gaining of geometrical facts, 
but often revolutionize the whole state of mind. It 
has repeatedly occurred that those who have been 
stupefied by the ordinary school-drill — by its abstract 
formulas, by its wearisome tasks, by its cramming, 
have suddenly had their intellects roused by thus 
ceasing to make them passive recipients, and induc- 
ing them to becoming active discoverers. The dis- 
couragement brought about by bad teaching having 
been diminished by a little sympathy, and sufficient 
perseverance induced to achieve a first success, there 
arises a revulsion of feeling affecting the whole 



THE PRACTICE OP EDUCATION 153 

nature. They no longer find themselves incompe- 
tent ; they too can do something. And gradually 
as success follows success, the incubus of despair dis- 
appears and they attack the difficulties of their other 
studies with a courage that insures conquest. 

This empirical geometry which presents an end- 
less series of problems, and should be Rational 
continued along with other studies for geometry, 
years, may throughout be advantageously accom- 
panied by those concrete applications of its principles 
which serves as its preliminary. After the cube, 
the octahedron, and the various forms of pyramid 
and prism have been mastered, may come the more 
complex regular bodies — the dodecahedron, and 
the icosahedron — to construct which out of single 
pieces of cardboard requires considerable ingenuity. 
From these the transition may naturally be made to 
such modified forms of the regular bodies as are 
met with in crystals — the truncated cube, the cube 
with its dihedral as well as its solid angles truncated, 
the octahedron and the various prisms as similarly 
modified — in imitating which numerous forms as- 
sumed by different metals and salts, an acquaintance 
with the leading facts of mineralogy will be inci- 
dentally gained. 

After long continuance in exercises of this kind, 
rational geometry, as may be supposed, presents no 
obstacles. Constantly habituated to contemplate re- 
lationships of form and quantity, and vaguely per- 



154 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION 

ceiving from time to time the necessity of certain 
results as reached by certain means, the pupil comes 
to regard the demonstrations of Euclid as the mis- 
sing supplements to his familiar problems. His 
well-disciplined faculties enable him easily to master 
its successive propositions and to appreciate their 
value, and he has the occasional gratification of 
finding some of his own methods proved to be true. 

Thus he enjoys what is to the unprepared a dreary 
task. It only remains to add, that his mind will 
presently arrive at a fit condition for that most val- 
uable of all exercises for the reflective faculties — the 
making of original demonstrations. Such theorems 
as those appended to the successive books of the 
Messrs. Chambers' Euclid, will soon become practi- 
cable to him, and in proving them the process of 
self-development will be not intellectual only, but 
moral. 

To continue much further these suggestions would 
ah education be to write a detailed treatise on educa- 
prmcipies. tion, which we do not purpose. The fore- 
going outlines of plans for exercising the perceptions 
in early childhood, for conducting object-lessons, for 
teaching drawing and geometry, must be considered 
as roughly-sketched illustrations of the method dic- 
tated by the general principles previously sjDecified. 
We believe that on examination they will be found 
not onty to progress from the simple to the complex, 
from the concrete to the abstract, from the empirical 









TWO FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES 155 

to the rational ; but to satisfy the further require- 
ments that education shall be a repetition of civili- 
zation in little, that it shall be as much as possible 
a process of self-evolution, and that it shall be pleas- 
urable. That there should be one type of method 
capable of satisfying all these conditions, tends alike 
to verify the conditions and to prove that type of 
method the right one. 

And when we add that this method is the logical 
outcome of the tendency characterizing all modern 
systems of instruction — that it is but an adoption in 
full of the method of nature which they adopt par- 
tially — that it displays this complete adoption of 
the method of nature, not only by conforming to the 
above principles, but by following the suggestions 
which the unfolding mind itself gives, facilitating 
its spontaneous activities, and so aidiug the develop- 
ments which nature is busy with — when we add 
this, there seems abundant reason to conclude that 
the mode of procedure above exemplified closely 
approximates to the true one. 

III. Two Fundamental Principles 

A few paragraphs must be appended in further 
inculcation of the two general principles, alike the 
most important and the least attended to : we mean 
the principle that throughout youth, as in early 
childhood and in maturity, the process shall be one 
of self-instruction ; and the obverse principle, that 



156 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION 

the mental action induced by this process shall be 
throughout intrinsically grateful. If progression 
from simple to complex, and from concrete to ab- 
stract, be considered the essential requirements as 
dictated by abstract psychology, then do these re- 
quirements that knowledge shall be self-mastered, 
and pleasurably mastered, become the tests by which 
we may judge whether the dictates of abstract psy- 
chology are being fulfilled. If the first embody the 
leading generalizations of the science of mental 
growth, the last are the chief canons of the art of 
fostering mental growth. For manifestly if the 
steps in our curriculum are so arranged that they 
can be successively ascended by the pupil himself 
with little or no help, they must correspond with 
the stages of evolution in his faculties ; and mani- 
festly if the successive achievements of these steps 
are intrinsically gratifying to him, it follows that 
they require no more than a normal exercise of his 
powers. 

But the making education a process of self-evolu- 
Advantages tion has other advantages than this of 
evolution. keeping our lessons in the right order. 
In the first place it guarantees a vividness and per- 
manency of impression which the usual methods 
can never produce. Any piece of knowledge which 
the pupil has himself acquired, any problem which 
he has himself solved, becomes by virtue of the con- 
quest much more thoroughly his than it could else 



TWO FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES 157 

be. The preliminary activity of mind which his 
success implies, the concentration of thought neces- 
sary to it, and the excitement consequent on his 
triumph, conspire to register all the facts in his 
memory in a way that no mere information heard 
from a teacher, or read in a school-book, can be 
registered. Even if he fails, the tension to which 
his faculties have been wound up insures his re- 
membrance of the solution when given to him, 
better than half a dozen repetitions would. 

Observe again, that this discipline necessitates a 
continuous organization of the knowledge he ac- 
quires. It is in the very nature of facts and infer- 
ences, assimilated in this normal manner, that they 
successively become the premises of further conclu- 
sions, — the means of solving still further questions. 
The solution of yesterday's problem helps the pupil 
in mastering to-day's. Thus the knowledge is 
turned into faculty as soon as it is taken in, and 
forthwith aids in the general function of thinking — 
does not lie merely written in the pages of an in- 
ternal library, as when rote-learnt. 

Mark further, the importance of the moral culture 
which this constant self-help involves. Courage in 
attacking difficulties, patient concentration of the 
attention, perseverance through failures — these are 
characteristics which after-life specially requires ; and 
these are characteristics which this system of making 
the mind work for its food specially produces. 



158 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION 

That it is thoroughly practicable to carry out in- 
struction after this fashion we can ourselves testify, 
having been in youth thus led to successively solve 
the comparatively complex problems of Perspective. 
And that leading teachers have been gradually 
tending in this direction is indicated alike in the 
saying of Fellenberg, that "the individual, inde- 
pendent activity of the pupil is of much greater im- 
portance than the ordinary busy officiousness of 
many who assume the office of educators ;" in the 
opinion of Horace Mann, that "unfortunately edu- 
cation amongst us at present consists too much in 
telling, not in training;" and in the remark of M. 
Marcel, that " what the learner discovers by mental 
exertion is better known than what is told to him." 

Similarly with the correlative requirement, that 
a happy * ne me ^ n °d of culture pursued shall be 
activity. one p ro d uc tive of an intrinsically happy 
activity, — an activity not happy in virtue of ex- 
trinsic rewards to be obtained, but in virtue of its 
own healthfulness. Conformity to this requirement 
not only guards us against thwarting the normal 
process of evolution, but incidentally secures positive 
benefits of importance. Unless we are to return to 
an ascetic morality, the maintenance of youthful 
happiness must be considered as in itself a worthy 
aim. 

Not to dwell upon this, however, we go on to re- 
mark that a pleasurable state of feeling is far more 



TWO FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES 159 

favorable to intellectual action than one of indiffer- 
ence or disgust. Every one knows that things read, 
heard, or seen with interest, are better remembered 
than those read, heard, or seen with apathy. In 
the one case the faculties appealed to are actively 
occupied with the subject presented, in the other 
they are inactively occupied with it and the atten- 
tion is continually drawn away after more attrac- 
tive thoughts. Hence the impressions are respectively 
strong and weak. 

Moreover, the intellectual listlessness which a 
pupil's lack of interest in any study involves, is 
further complicated by his anxiety, by his fear of 
consequences, which distract his attention and in- 
crease the difficulty he finds in bringing his faculties 
to bear upon these facts that are repugnant to them. 
Clearly, therefore, the efficiency of any intellectual 
action will, other things equal, be proportionate to 
the gratification with which it is performed. 

It should be considered also, that important moral 
consequences depend upon the habitual Moral 
pleasure or pain which daily lessons pro- effects - 
duce. No one can compare the faces and manners 
of two boys — the one made happy by mastering 
interesting subjects, and the other made miserable 
by disgust with his studies, by consequent failures, 
by cold looks, by threats, by punishment — without 
seeing that the disposition of the one is being bene- 
fited, and that of the other greatly injured. Who- 



160 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION 

ever has marked the effect of intellectual success 
upon the mind, and the power of the mind over the 
body, will see that in the one case both temper and 
health are favorably affected, whilst in the other 
there is danger of permanent moroseness, of perma- 
nent timidity, and even of permanent constitutional 
depression. 

To all which considerations we must add the 
further one, that the relationship between teachers 
and their pupils is, other things equal, rendered 
friendly and influential, or antagonistic and power- 
less, according as the system of culture produces 
happiness or misery. Human beings are at the 
mercy of their associated ideas. A daily minister 
of pain cannot fail to be regarded with a secret dis- 
like, and if he causes no emotions but painful ones 
will inevitably be hated. Conversely, he who con- 
stantly aids children to their ends, hourly provides 
them with the satisfactions of conquest, hourly en- 
courages them through their difficulties and sympa- 
thizes in their successes, cannot fail to be liked ; nay, 
if his behavior is consistent throughout, must be 
loved. And when we remember how efficient and 
benign is the control of a master who is felt to be a 
friend, when compared with the control of one who 
is looked upon with aversion, or at best indifference, 
we may infer that the indirect advantages of con- 
ducting education on the happiness principle do not 
fall far short of the direct ones. 






TWO FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES 161 

To all who question the possibility of acting out 
the system here advocated, we reply as before, that 
not only does theory point to it, but experience com- 
mends it. To the many verdicts of distinguished 
teachers who since Pestalozzi's time have testified 
this, may be here added that of Professor Pillans, 
who asserts that " where young people are taught as 
they ought to be, they are quite as happy in school 
as at play, seldom less delighted, nay often more, 
with the well-directed exercise of their mental ener- 
gies than with that of their muscular powers." 

As suggesting a final reason for making education 
a process of self-instruction, and by con- Education 
sequence a process of pleasurable instruc- finished, 
tion, we may advert to the fact that, in proportion 
as it is made so, is there a probability that education 
will not cease when school-days end. As long as 
the acquisition of knowledge is rendered habitually 
repugnant, so long will there be a prevailing ten- 
dency to discontinue it when free from the coercion 
of parents and masters. And when the acquisition 
of knowledge has been rendered habitually gratify- 
ing, then will there be as prevailing a tendency to 
continue, without superintendence, that same self- 
culture previously carried on under superintendence. 

These results are inevitable. While the laws of 
mental association remain true — while men dislike 
the things and places that suggest painful recollec- 
tions, and delight in those which call to mind by- 



162 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION 

gone pleasures — painful lessons will make knowl- 
edge repulsive, and pleasurable lessons will make it 
attractive. The men to whom in boyhood informa- 
tion came in dreary tasks along with threats of pun- 
ishment, and who were never led into habits of 
independent inquiry, are unlikely to be students in 
after years ; while those to whom it came in the 
natural forms, at the proper times, and who remem- 
ber its facts as not only interesting in themselves, 
but as the occasions of a long series of gratifying 
successes, are likely to continue through life that self- 
instruction commenced in youth. 



CHAPTER III 

MORAL EDUCATION 

Strangely enough, the most glaring defect in our 
programmes of education is entirely over- Preparation 
looked. While much is being done in of parents. 
the detailed improvement of our systems in re- 
spect both of matter and manner, the most pressing 
desideratum has not yet been even recognized as a 
desideratum. To prepare the young for the duties 
of life is tacitly admitted by all to be the end which 
parents and schoolmasters should have in view ; 
and happily the value of the things taught, and the 
goodness of the method followed in teaching them, 
are now ostensibly judged by their fitness to this 
end. The propriety of substituting for an exclusively 
classical training, a training in which the modern 
languages shall have a share, is argued on this 
ground. The necessity of increasing the amount 
of science is urged for like reasons. 

But though some care is taken to fit youth of 
both sexes for society and citizenship, no care what- 
ever is taken to fit them for the still more important 
position they will ultimately have to fill — the posi- 
tion of parents. While it is seen that for the pur- 
pose of gaining a livelihood an elaborate preparation 

(163) 



164 MORAL EDUCATION 

is needed, it appears to be thought that for the 
bringing up of children no £>reparation whatever is 
needed. While many years are spent by a boy in 
gaining knowledge, of which the chief value is that 
it constitutes "the education of a gentleman", and 
while many years are spent by a girl in those decor- 
ative acquirements which fit her for evening parties, 
not an hour is spent by either of them in prepara- 
tion for that gravest of all responsibilities — the man- 
agement of a family. 

Is it that this responsibility is but a remote con- 
tingency ? On the contrary, it is certain to devolve 
on nine out of ten. Is it that the discharge of it is 
easy ? Certainly not : of all functions which the 
adult has to fulfil this is the most difficult. Is it 
that each may be trusted by self-instruction to fit 
himself, or herself, for the office of parent ? No : 
not only is the need for such self-instruction unrecog- 
nized, but the complexity of the subject renders it 
the one of all others in which self-instruction is least 
likely to succeed. 

No rational plea can be put forward for leaving 
the Art of Education out of our curriculum. Whether 
as bearing upon the happiness of parents themselves, 
or whether as affecting the characters and lives of 
their children and remote descendants, we must 
admit that a knowledge of the right methods of 
juvenile culture, physical, intellectual, and moral, is 
a knowledge second to none in importance. This 



the Culmination of education 165 

topic should occupy the highest and last place in 
the course of instruction passed through by each 
man and woman. As physical maturity is marked 
by the ability to produce offspring, so mental 
maturity is marked by the ability to train those off- 
spring. The subject which involves all other subjects, 
and therefore the subject in which the education of 
every one should culminate, is. the Theory and Practice 
of Education. 

In the absence of this preparation, the manage- 
ment of children, and more especially the unreasoning 
moral management, is lamentably bad. training. 
Parents either never think about the matter at all, 
or else their conclusions are crude and inconsistent. 
In most cases, and especially on the part of mothers, 
the treatment adopted on every occasion is that 
which the impulse of the moment prompts : it 
springs not from any reasoned-out conviction as to 
what will most conduce to the child's welfare, but 
merely expresses the passing parental feelings, 
whether good or ill ; and varies from hour to 
hour as these feelings vary. Or if these blind 
dictates of passion are supplemented by any definite 
doctrines and methods, they are those that have 
been handed down from the past, or those suggested 
by the remembrances of childhood, or those adopted 
from nurses and servants — methods devised not by 
the enlightenment, but by the ignorance of the time. 

Commenting on the chaotic state of opinion and 



166 MORAL EDUCATION 

practice relative to family government, Bichter 
writes : — 

If the secret variances of a large class of ordinary 
fathers were brought to light, and laid down as a 
plan of studies, and reading catalogued for a moral 
education, they would run somewhat after this 
fashion : — In the first hour " Pure morality must be 
read to the child, either by myself or the tutor ; " in 
the second, " Mixed morality, or that which may be 
applied to one's own advantage ; " in the third, " Do 
you not see that your father does so and so?" in 
the fourth, " You are little, and this is only fit for 
grown-up people ; " in the fifth, " The chief matter 
is that you should succeed in the world, and become 
something in the state ; " in the sixth, " Not the 
temporary, but the eternal, determines the worth of 
a man ; " in the seventh, " Therefore rather suffer 
injustice, and be kind ; " in the eighth, " But defend 
yourself bravely if any one attack you ; " in the 
ninth, " Do not make a noise, dear child ; " in the 
tenth, " A boy must not sit so quiet ; " in the eleventh, 
" You must obey your parents better ; " in the 
twelfth, " And educate yourself." So by the hourly 
change of his principles, the father conceals their 
untenableness and onesidedness. As for his wife, 
she is neither like him, nor yet like that harlequin 
who came on to the stage with a bundle of papers 
under each arm, and answered to the inquiry, what 
he had under his right arm, u orders ", and to what 



UNREASONING MORAL TRAINING 167 

he had under his left arm, " counter-orders ". But 
the mother might be much better compared to a 
giant Briareus, who had a hundred arms, and a 
bundle of paper under each. 

This state of things is not to be readily changed. 
Generations must pass before any great amelioration 
of it can be expected. Like political constitutions, 
educational systems are not made, but grow ; and 
within brief periods growth is insensible. Slow, 
however, as must be any improvement, even that 
improvement implies the use of means, and among 
the means is discussion. 

We are not among those who believe in Lord 
Palmerston's dogma, that " all children children 
are born good ". On the whole, the op- good. 
posite dogma, untenable as it is, seems to us less 
wide of the truth. Nor do we agree with those who 
think that, by skilful discipline, children may be 
made altogether what they should be. Contrariwise, 
we are satisfied that though imperfections of nature 
may be diminished by wise management, they can- 
not be removed by it. The notion that an ideal 
humanity might be forthwith produced by a perfect 
system of education, is near akin to that shadowed 
forth in the poems of Shelley, that would mankind 
give up their old institutions, prejudices, and errors, 
all the evils in the world would at once disappear : 
neither notion being acceptable to such as have dis- 
passionately studied human affairs. 



168 MORAL EDUCATION 

Not that we are without S} T mpathy with those who 
entertain these too sanguine hopes. Enthusiasm, 
pushed even to fanaticism, is a useful motive-power 
— perhaps an indispensable one. It is clear that the 
ardent politician would never undergo the labors 
and make the sacrifices he does, did he not believe 
that the reform he fights for is the one thing need- 
ful. But for his conviction that drunkenness is the 
root of almost all social evils, the teetotaller would 
agitate far less energetically. In philanthropy as 
in other things great advantage results from division 
of labor ; and that there may be division of labor, 
each class of philanthropists must be more or less 
subordinated to its function — must have an exag- 
gerated faith in its work. Hence, of those who 
regard education, intellectual or moral, as the 
panacea, we may say that their undue expectations 
are not without use ; and that perhaps it is part of 
the beneficent order of things that their confidence 
cannot be shaken. 

Even were it true, however, that by some possible 
Parents system of moral government children 

fault. ' could be moulded into the desired form, 
and even could every parent be duly indoctrinated 
with this system, we should still be far from achiev- 
ing the object in view. It is forgotten that the 
carrying out of any such system presupposes, on the 
part of adults, a degree of intelligence, of goodness, 
of self-control, possessed by no one. 



PARENTAL MISCONDUCT 169 

The great error made by those who discuss ques- 
tions of juvenile discipline, is in ascribing all the 
faults and difficulties to the children and none to 
the parents. The current assumption respecting 
family government, as respecting national govern- 
ment, is, that the virtues are with the rulers and 
the vices with the ruled. Judging by educational 
theories, men and women are entirely transfigured 
in the domestic relation. The citizens we do busi- 
ness with, the people we meet in the world, we all 
know to be very imperfect creatures. In the daily 
scandals, in the quarrels of friends, in bankruptcy 
disclosures, in lawsuits, in police reports, we have 
constantly thrust before us the pervading selfishness, 
dishonesty, brutality. Yet when we criticise nursery 
management, and canvass the misbehavior of juven- 
iles, we habitually take for granted that these 
culpable men and women are free from moral de- 
linquency in the treatment of their offspring ! So 
far is this from the truth, that we do not hesitate to 
say that to parental misconduct is traceable a great 
part of the domestic disorder commonly ascribed to 
the perversity of children. 

We do not assert this of the more sympathetic 
and self-restrained, among whom we hope most of 
our readers may be classed, but we assert it of the 
mass. What kind of moral discipline is to be ex- 
pected from a mother who, time after time, angrily 
shakes her infant because it will not suckle her, 



170 MORAL EDUCATION 

which we once saw a mother do ? How much love 
of justice and generosity is likely to be instilled by a 
father who, on having his attention drawn by his 
child's scream to the fact that its finger is jammed 
between the window sash and the sill, forthwith be- 
gins to beat the child instead of releasing it ? Yet 
that there are such fathers is testified to us by an eye- 
witness. Or, to take a still stronger case, also vouched 
for by direct testimony — what are the educational 
prospects of the boy who, on being taken home with 
a dislocated thigh, is saluted with a castigation? 

It is true that these are extreme instances — in- 
stances exhibiting in human beings that blind 
instinct which impels brutes to destroy the weakly 
and injured of their own race. But extreme though 
they are, they typify feelings and conduct daily ob- 
servable in many families. Who has not repeatedly 
seen a child slapped by nurse or parent for a fret- 
fulness probably resulting from bodily derangement ? 
Who, when watching a mother snatch up a fallen 
little one, has not often traced, both in the rough 
manner and in the sharply-uttered exclamation — 
" You stupid little thing ! " — an irascibility foretell- 
ing endless future squabbles ? Is there not in the 
harsh tones in which a father bids his children be 
quiet, evidence of a deficient fellow-feeling with 
them ? Are not the constant, and often quite need- 
less, thwartings that the young experience — the in- 
junctions to sit still, which an active child cannot 



LACK OF PARENTAL SYMPATHY 171 

obey without suffering great nervous irritation, the 
commands not to look out of the window when travel- 
ling by railway, which on a child of any intelligence 
entails serious deprivation — are not these thwart- 
ings, we ask, signs of a terrible lack of sympathy ? 

The truth is, that the difficulties of moral educa- 
tion are necessarily of dual origin — necessarily result 
from the combined faults of parents and children. 
If hereditary transmission is a law of nature, as 
every naturalist knows it to be, and as our daily 
remarks and current proverbs admit it to be, then 
on the average of cases, the defects of children mirror 
the defects of their parents ; — on the average of 
cases, we say, because, complicated as the results are 
by the transmitted traits of remoter ancestors, the 
correspondence is not special but only general. And 
if, on the average of cases, this inheritance of de- 
fects exists, then the evil passions which parents 
have to check in their children imply like evil pas- 
sions in themselves : hidden, it may be, from the 
public eye, or perhaps obscured by other feelings ; 
but still there. Evidently, therefore, the general 
practice of any ideal system of discipline is hopeless : 
parents are not good enough. 

Moreover, even were there methods by which the 
desired end could be at once effected, and Harsh disci . 
even had fathers and mothers sufficient ge2 e prepa£° 
insight, sympathy, and self-command to atlonforllfe - 
employ these methods consistently, it might still be 



172 MORAL EDUCATION 

contended that it would be of no use to reform fam- 
ily discipline faster than other things are reformed. 
What is it that we aim to do ? Is it not that educa- 
tion of whatever kind has for its proximate end to 
prepare a child for the business of life — to produce 
a citizen who, at the same time that he is well con- 
ducted, is also able to make his way in the world ? 
And does not making his way in the world (by 
which we mean, not the acquirement of wealth, but 
of the means requisite for properly bringing up a 
family) — does not this imply a certain fitness for the 
world as it now is ? And if by any system of cul- 
ture an ideal human being could be produced, is it 
not doubtful whether he would be fit for the world 
as it now is ? May we not, on the contrary, suspect 
that his too keen sense of rectitude and too elevated 
standard of conduct would make life alike intolerable 
and impossible? And however admirable the re- 
sults might be, considered individually, would it not 
be self-defeating in so far as society and posterity 
are concerned ? 

It may, we think, be argued with much reason, 
that as in a nation so in a family, the kind of gov- 
ernment is, on the whole, about as good as the 
general state of human nature permits it to be. It 
may be said that in the one case, as in the other, 
the average character of the people determines the 
quality of the control exercised. It may be inferred 
that in both cases amelioration of the average char- 



HARSH DISCIPLINE 173 

acter leads to an amelioration of system ; and 
further, that were it possible to ameliorate the sys- 
tem without the average character being first amel- 
iorated, evil, rather than good, would follow. It 
may be urged that such degree of harshness as 
children now experience from their parents and 
teachers, is but a preparation for that greater harsh- 
ness which they will meet with on entering the 
world, and that were it possible for parents and 
teachers to behave toward them with perfect equity 
and entire sympathy, it would but intensify the 
sufferings which the selfishness of men must, in 
after life, inflict on them.* 

" But does not this prove too much ? " some one 
will ask. " If no system of moral culture Iraprovement 
can forthwith make children altogether P° sslble - 
what they should be ; if, even were there a system 
that would do this, existing parents are too imper- 
fect to carry it out ; and if even could such a system 

* This is the plea put in by some for the rough treatment experienced 
by boys at our public schools ; where, as it is said, they are introduced to a 
miniature world whose imperfections and hardships prepai'e them for those 
of the real world : and it must be admitted that the plea has some force. 
But it is a very insufficient plea. For whereas domestic and school disci- 
pline, though they should not be very much better than the discipline of 
adult life, should at any rate be somewhat better ; the discipline which boys 
meet with at Eton, Winchester, Harrow, etc., is much worse than that of 
adult life— much more unjust, cruel, brutal. Instead of being an aid to 
human progress, which all culture should be, the culture of our public 
schools, by accustoming boys to a despotic form of government and an in- 
tercourse regulated by brute force, tends to fit them for a lower state of 
society than that which exists. And chiefly recruited as our legislature is 
from among those who are brought up at these schools, the barbarizing in- 
fluence becomes a serious hindrance to national progress. 



174 MORAL EDUCATION 

be successfully carried out, its results would be dis- 
astrously iucongruous with the preseut state of 
society ; does it not follow that a reform in the sys- 
tem now in use is neither practicable nor desirable ? " 

No. It merely follows that reform in domestic 
government must go on, pari passu, with other re- 
forms. It merely follows that methods of discipline 
neither can be nor should be ameliorated except by 
instalments. It merely follows that the dictates of 
abstract rectitude will, in practice, inevitably be sub- 
ordinated by the present state of human nature — 
by the imperfections alike of children, of parents, 
and of society ; and can only be better fulfilled as 
the general character becomes better. 

" At any rate, then," may rejoin our critic, "it is 
An ideal clearly useless to set up any ideal stand- 
standard. ar( j f f am ji v discipline. There can be 
no advantage in elaborating and recommending 
methods that are in advance of the time." 

Again we must contend for the contrary. Just 
as in the case of political government, though pure 
rectitude may be at present impracticable, it is 
requisite to know where the right lies, so that the 
changes we make may be towards the right instead 
of away from it ; so in the case of domestic govern- 
ment, an ideal must be upheld, that there may be 
gradual approximations to it. 

We need fear no evil consequences from the main- 
tenance of such an ideal. On the average the con- 



AN IDEAL STANDARD 175 

stitutional conservatism of mankind is always strong 
enough to prevent a too rapid change. So admir- 
able are the arrangements of things that until men 
have grown up to the level of a higher belief, they 
cannot receive it : nominally, they may hold it, but 
not virtually. And even when the truth gets recog- 
nized, the obstacles to conformity with it are so per- 
sistent as to outlive the patience of philanthropists 
and even philosophers. We may be quite sure, 
therefore, that the many difficulties standing in the 
way of a normal government of children, will always 
put an adequate check upon the efforts to realize it. 
With these preliminary explanations let us go on 
to consider the true aims and methods of moral 
education — moral education, strictly so called, we 
mean ; for we do not propose to enter upon the 
question of religious education as an aid to the edu- 
cation exclusively moral. This we omit as a topic 
better dealt with separately. After a few pages 
devoted to the settlement of general principles, dur- 
ing the perusal of which we bespeak the reader's 
patience, we shall aim by illustrations to make clear 
the right methods of parental behavior in the hourly 
occurring difficulties of family government. 

I. General Principles 

When a child falls, or runs its head against the 
table, it suffers a pain the remembrance Nature , s 
of which tends to make it more careful method - 
for the future, and by an occasional repetition of 



176 MORAL EDUCATION 

like experiences it is eventually disciplined into a 
proper guidance of its movements. If it lays hold 
of the fire-bars, thrusts its finger into the candle- 
flame, or spills boiling water on any part of its skin, 
the resulting burn or scald is a lesson not easily 
forgotten. So deep an impression is produced by 
one or two such events, that afterwards no persua- 
sion will induce it again to disregard the laws of its 
constitution in these ways. 

Now in these and like cases, Nature illustrates to 
us in the simplest way the true theory and practice 
of moral discipline — a theory and practice which, 
however much they may seem to the superficial like 
those commonly received, we shall find on examina- 
tion to differ from them very widely. 

Observe, in the first place, that in bodily injuries 
Actions and their penalties we have misconduct 

results. and its consequences reduced to their 

simplest forms. Though according to their popular 
acceptations, right and wrong are words scarcely 
applicable to actions that have none but direct 
bodily effects, yet whoever considers the matter 
will see that such actions must be as much class- 
ifiable under these heads as any other actions. 

From whatever basis they start, all theories of 
morality agree in considering that conduct whose 
total results, immediate and remote, are beneficial, 
is good conduct, while conduct whose total results, 
immediate and remote are injurious, is bad conduct. 



GENERAL PRINCIPLES 177 

The happiness or misery caused by it are the ulti- 
mate standards by which all men judge of behavior. 
We consider drunkenness wrong because of the 
physical degeneracy and accompanying moral evils 
entailed on the transgressor and his dependents. 
Did theft uniformly give pleasure both to taker and 
loser, we should not find it in our catalogue of sins. 
Were it conceivable that benevolent actions multi- 
plied human pains, we should condemn them — 
should not consider them benevolent. It needs but 
to read the first newspaper leader, or listen to any 
conversation touching social affairs, to see that acts 
of parliament, political movements, philanthropic 
agitations, in common with the doings of individ- 
uals, are judged by their anticipated results in mul- 
tiplying the pleasures or pains of men. And if on 
looking on all secondary superinduced ideas, we find 
these to be our ultimate tests of right and wrong, 
we cannot refuse to class purely physical actions as 
right or wrong according to the beneficial or detri- 
mental results they produce. 

Note, in the second place, the character of the 
punishments by which these physical Punishment 
transgressions are prevented. Punish- quences. 
ments, we call them, in the absence of a better word, 
for they are not punishments in the literal sense. 
They are not artificial and unnecessary inflictions 
of pain, but are simply the beneficent checks to 
actions that are essentially at variance with bodily 



178 MORAL EDUCATION 

welfare — cheeks in the absence of which life would 
quickly be destroyed by bodily injuries. It is the 
peculiarity of these penalties, if we must so call them, 
that they are nothing more than the unavoidable con- 
sequences of the deeds which they follow : they are 
nothing more than the inevitable reactions entailed 
by the child's actions. 

Let it be further borne in mind that these painful 
Proportion- reactions are proportionate to the degree 
session. in which the organic laws have been trans- 
gressed. A slight accident brings a slight pain, a more 
serious one, a greater pain. When a child tumbles 
over the door-stejD it is not ordained that it shall 
suffer in excess of the amount necessary, with the view 
of making it still more cautious than the necessary 
suffering will make it. But from its daily experi- 
ence it is left to learn the greater or less penalties of 
greater or less errors, and to behave accordingly. 

And then mark, lastly, that these natural reactions 
which follow the child's wrong actions, 
are constant, direct, unhesitating, and not 
to be escaped. No threats : but a silent, rigorous 
performance. If a child runs a pin into its finger, 
pain follows. If it does it again, there is again the 
same result : and so on perpetually. In all its deal- 
ings with surrounding inorganic nature it finds this 
unswerving persistence, which listens to no excuse, 
and from which there is no appeal ; and very soon 
recognizing this stern though beneficent discipline, 



GENERAL PRINCIPLES 179 

it becomes extremely careful not to transgress. 
Still more significant will these general truths 
appear when we remember that they hold 

r -* "* Permanent. 

throughout adult life as well as through- 
out infantile life. It is by an experimentally-gained 
knowledge of the natural consequences, that men 
and women are checked when they go wrong. 
After home education has ceased, and when there 
are no longer parents and teachers to forbid this or 
that kind of conduct, there comes into play a disci- 
pline like that by which the young child is taught 
its first lessons in self-guidance. 

If the youth entering upon the business of life 
idles away his time and fulfils slowly or unskilfully 
the duties entrusted to him, there by and by follows 
the natural penalty : he is discharged, and left to 
suffer for awhile the evils of relative poverty. On the 
unpunctual man, failing alike his appointments of 
business and pleasure, there continually fall the 
consequent inconveniences, losses, and deprivations. 
The avaricious tradesman who charges too high a 
rate of profit, loses his customers, and so is checked 
in his greediness. Diminishing practice teaches the 
inattentive doctor to bestow more trouble on his 
patients. The too credulous creditor and the over- 
sanguine speculator alike learn by the difficulties 
which rashness entails on them, the necessity of 
being more cautious in their engagements. 

And so throughout the life of every citizen. In 



180 MORAL EDUCATION 

the quotation so often made apropos of these eases — 
" The burnt child dreads the fire " — we see not only 
that the analogy between this social discipline and 
Nature's early discipline of infants is universal^ 
recognized ; but we also see an implied conviction 
that this discipline is of the most efficient kind. 

Nay more, this conviction is not only implied, 
but distinctly stated. Every one has heard others 
confess that only by " dearly bought experience" 
had they been induced to give up some bad or fool- 
ish course of conduct formerly pursued. Every one 
has heard, in the criticisms passed on the doings of 
this spendthrift or the other speculator, the remark 
that advice was useless, and that nothing but " bit- 
ter experience" would produce any effect: nothing, 
that is, but suffering the unavoidable consequences. 

And if further proof be needed that the penalty 
of the natural reaction is not only the most efficient, 
but that no humanly-devised penalty can replace it, 
we have such further proof in the notorious ill-suc- 
cess of our various penal systems. Out of the many 
methods of criminal discipline that have been pro- 
posed and legally enforced, none have answered the 
expectations of their advocates. Not only have arti- 
ficial punishments failed to produce reformation, but 
they have in many cases increased the criminality. 
The only successful reformatories are those privately- 
established ones which have approximated their 
regime to the method of Nature — which have done 



GENERAL PRINCIPLES 181 

little more than administer the natural consequences 
of criminal conduct : the natural consequences be- 
ing, that by imprisonment or other restraint, the 
criminal shall have his liberty of action diminished 
as much as is needful for the safety of society ; and 
that he shall be made to maintain himself while 
living under this restraint. 

Thus we see not only that the discipline by which 
the young child is so successfully taught to regulate 
its movements is also the discipline by which the 
great mass of adults are kept in order, and more or 
less improved, but that the discipline humanly- 
devised for the worst adults, fails when it diverges 
from this divinely-ordained discipline and begins to 
succeed when it approximates to it. 

Have we not here, then, the guiding principle of 
moral education ? Must we not infer that Follow 
the system so beneficent in its effects, nature - 
alike during infancy and maturity, will be equally 
beneficent throughout youth ? Can any one believe 
that the method which answers so well in the first 
and the last divisions of life will not answer in the 
intermediate division ? Is it not manifest that as 
"ministers and interpreters of Nature" it is the 
function of parents to see that their children habit- 
ually experience the true consequences of their 
conduct — the natural reactions : neither warding 
them off, nor intensifying them, nor putting 
artificial consequences in place of them? No 



182 MORAL EDUCATION 

unprejudiced reader will hesitate in his assent. 

Probably, however, not a few will contend that 
Natural already most parents do this — that the 

parents. punishments they inflict are, in the ma- 
jority of cases, the true consequences of ill-conduct — 
that parental anger, venting itself in harsh words 
and deeds, is the result of a child's transgression — 
and that, in the suffering, physical or moral, which 
the child is subject to, it experiences the natural re- 
action of its misbehavior. 

Along with much error this assertion, doubtless, 
contains some truth. It is unquestionable that the 
displeasure of fathers and mothers is a true conse- 
quence of juvenile delinquency, and that the mani- 
festation of it is a normal check upon such 
delinquency. It is unquestionable that the scold- 
ings, and threats, and blows, which a passionate 
parent visits on offending little ones, are effects 
actually produced in such a parent by their offences, 
and so are, in some sort, to be considered as among 
the natural reactions of their wrong actions. And 
Ave are by no means prepared to say that these modes 
of treatment are not relatively right — right, that is, 
in relation to the uncontrollable children of ill-con- 
trolled adults ; and right in relation to a state of 
society in which such ill-controlled adults make up 
the mass of the people. 

As already suggested, educational systems, like 
political and other institutions, are generally as good 



GENERAL PRINCIPLES 183 

as the state of human nature permits. The barbar- 
ous children of barbarous parents are probably only 
to be restrained by the barbarous methods which 
such parents spontaneously employ, while submis- 
sion to these barbarous methods is perhaps the best 
preparation such children can have for the barbarous 
society in which they are presently to play a part. 
Conversely, the civilized members of a civilized 
society will spontaneously manifest their displeasure 
in less violent ways — will spontaneously use milder 
measures : measures strong enough for their better- 
natured children. Thus it is doubtless true that, in 
so far as the expression of parental feeling is con- 
cerned, the principle of the natural reaction is al- 
ways more or less followed. The system of domestic 
government ever gravitates towards its right 
form. 

But now observe two important facts. In the 
first place, observe that, in states of rapid Methods 
transition like ours, which witness a long- times. 
drawn battle between old and new theories and old 
and new practices, the educational methods in use 
are apt to be considerably out of harmony with the 
times. In deference to dogmas fit only for the ages 
that uttered them, many parents inflict punishments 
that do violence to their own feelings, and so visit 
on their children unnatural reactions ; while other 
parents, enthusiastic in their hopes of immediate 
perfection, rush to the opposite extreme. 



184 MORAL EDUCATION 

And then observe, in the second place, that the 
conse- discipline on which we are insisting is not 

quences of , , , 

nature, not so much the experience of paternal appro- 
proxies, bation or disapprobation, which, in most 
cases, is only a secondary consequence of a child's 
conduct, but it is the experience of those results 
which would naturally flow from the conduct, in the 
absence of parental opinion or interference. The 
truly instructive and salutary consequences are not 
those inflicted by parents when they take upon them- 
selves to be Nature's proxies, but they are those 
inflicted by Nature herself. We will endeavor to 
make this distinction clear by a few illustrations, 
which, while they show what we mean by natural 
reactions as contrasted with artificial ones, will 
afford some directly practical suggestions. 

In every family where there are young children 
there almost daily occurs cases of what 

Illustrations. ' 

mothers and servants call " making a lit- 
ter ". A child has had out its box of toys and leaves 
them scattered about the floor. Or a handful of 
flowers, brought in from a morning walk, is pres- 
ently seen dispersed over tables and chairs. Or a 
little girl, making doll's-clothes, disfigures the room 
with shreds. In most cases the trouble of rectifying 
this disorder falls anywhere but in the right place : 
if in the nursery, the nurse herself, with many 
grumblings about " tiresome little things ", etc, 
undertakes the task ; if below stairs, the task usually 



GENERAL PRINCIPLES 185 

devolves either on one of the elder children or on 
the housemaid ; the transgressor being visited with 
nothing more than a scolding. 

In this very simple case, however, there are many 
parents wise enough to follow out, more or less con- 
sistently, the normal course — that of making the 
child itself collect the toys or shreds. The labor of 
putting things in order is the true consequence of 
having put them in disorder. Every trader in his 
office, every wife in her household, has daily exper- 
ience of this fact. And if education be a prepara- 
tion for the business of life, then every child should 
also, from the beginning, have daily experience of 
this fact. 

If the natural penalty be met by any refractory 
behavior (which it may perhaps be where the general 
system of moral discipline previously pursued has 
been bad), then the proper course is to let the child 
feel the ulterior reaction consequent on this dis- 
obedience. Having refused or neglected to pick up 
and put away the things it has scattered about, and 
having thereby entailed the trouble of doing this on 
some one else, the child should, on subsequent oc- 
casions be denied the means of giving this trouble. 
When next it petitions for its toy-box, the reply of 
its mamma should be — " The last time you had 
your toys you left them lying on the floor, and Jane 
had to pick them up. Jane is too busy to pick up 
every day the things you leave about, and I cannot 



186 MORAL EDUCATION 

do it myself. So that, as you will not put away 
your toys wlieu you have doue with them, I cannot 
let you have them." 

This is obviously a uatural consequence, ueither 
iucr eased uor lessened, and must be so recognized by 
a child. The penalty comes, too, at the moment 
when it is most keenly felt. A new-born desire is 
balked at the moment of anticipated gratification, 
and the strong impression so produced can scarcely 
fail to have an effect on the future conduct : an 
effect which, by consistent repetition, will do what- 
ever can be done in curing the fault. Add to which, 
that, by this method, a child is early taught the 
lesson which cannot be learnt too soon, that in this 
world of ours pleasures are rightly to be obtained 
only by labor. 

Take another case. Not long since we had fre- 
Another quently to listen to the reprimands visited 
illustration. on a little girl who was scarcely ever ready 
in time for the daily walk. Of eager disposition, 
and apt to become thoroughly absorbed in the occu- 
pation of the moment, Constance never thought of 
putting on her things until the rest were ready. 
The governess and the other children had almost 
invariably to wait, and from the mamma there 
almost invariably came the same scolding. 

Utterly as this system failed it never occurred to 
the mamma to let Constance experience the natural 
penalty. Nor, indeed, would she try it when it was 



GENERAL PRINCIPLES 187 

suggested to her. In the world the penalty of being 
behind time is the loss of some advantage that would 
else have been gained : the train is gone, or the 
steamboat is just leaving its moorings, or the best 
things in the market are sold, or all the good seats 
in the concert-room are filled. And every one, in 
cases perpetually occurring, may see that it is the 
prospective deprivations entailed by being too late 
which prevent people from being too late. 

Is not the inference obvious ? Should not these 
prospective deprivations control the child's conduct 
also ? If Constance is not ready at the appointed time, 
the natural result is that of being left behind and los- 
ing her walk. And no one can, wc think, doubt that 
after having once or twice remained at home while 
the rest were enjoying themselves in the fields, and 
after having felt that this loss of a much-prized grat- 
ification was solely due to want of promptitude, 
some amendment would take place. At any rate 
the measure would be more effective than that per- 
petual scolding which ends only in producing cal- 
lousness. 

Again, when children, with more than usual care- 
lessness, break or lose the things given to Ancl an _ 
them, the natural penalty — the penalty othe1 '* 
which makes grown-up persons more careful — is the 
consequent inconvenience. The want of the lost or 
damaged article, and the cost of supplying its place, 
are the experiences by which men and women are 



188 MORAL EDUCATION 

disciplined in these matters ; and the experience of 
children should be as much as possible assimilated 
to theirs. We do not refer to that early period at 
which toys are pulled to pieces in the process of 
learning their physical properties, and at which the 
results of carelessness cannot be understood, but to 
a later period, when the meaning and advantages 
of property are perceived. 

When a boy, old enough to possess a penknife, 
uses it so roughly as to snap the blade, or leaves it 
in the grass by some hedge-side, where he was cut- 
ting a stick, a thoughtless parent or some indulgent 
relative, will commonly forthwith buy him another, 
not seeing that, by doing this, a valuable lesson is 
lost. In such a case a father may properly explain 
that penknives cost money, and that to get money 
requires labor ; that he cannot afford to purchase 
new penknives for one who loses or breaks them, 
and that until he sees evidence of greater careful- 
ness he must decline to make good the loss. A 
parallel discipline may be used as a means of check- 
ing extravagance. 

These few familiar instances, here chosen because 
of the simplicity with which they illustrate our point, 
will make clear to every one the distinction between 
those natural penalties which we contend are the 
truly efficient ones, and those artificial penalties 
which parents commonly substitute for them. Be- 
fore going on to exhibit the higher and subtler ap- 




GENERAL PRINCIPLES 189 

plications of this principle, let us note its many and 
great superiorities over the principle, or rather the 
empirical practice, which prevails in most families. 
In the first place, right conceptions of cause and 
effect are early formed, and by frequent conceptions 

, . , -:, . ,n of cause 

and consistent experience are eventually and effect, 
rendered definite and complete. Proper conduct in 
life is much better guaranteed when the good and 
evil consequences of actions are rationally under- 
stood, than when they are merely believed on 
authority. A child who finds that disorderliness 
entails the subsequent trouble of putting things in 
order, or who misses a gratification from dilatoriness, 
or whose want of care is followed by the loss or 
breakage of some much-prized possession, not only 
experiences a keenly-felt consequence, but gains a 
knowledge of causation — both the one and the other 
being just like those which adult life will bring — 
whereas a child who in such cases receives some 
reprimand or some factitious penalty, not only ex- 
periences a consequence for which it often cares 
very little, but lacks that instruction respecting the 
essential natures of good and evil conduct, which it 
would else have gathered. 

It is a vice of the common s} T stem of artificial re- 
wards and punishments, long since noticed by the 
clear-sighted, that by substituting for the natural 
results of misbehavior certain threatened tasks or 
castigations, it produces a radically wrong standard 



190 MORAL EDUCATION 

of moral guidance. Having throughout infancy 
and boyhood always regarded parental or tutorial 
displeasure as the result of a forbidden action, the 
youth has gained an established association of ideas 
between such action and such displeasure, as cause 
and effect ; and consequently when parents and 
tutors have abdicated and their displeasure is not to 
be feared, the restraint on a forbidden action is in 
great measure removed : the true restraints, the 
natural reactions, having yet to be learnt by sad ex- 
perience. As writes one who has had personal 
knowledge of this shortsighted system : — " Young 
men let loose from school, particularly those whose 
parents have neglected to exert their influence, 
plunge into every description of extravagance ; they 
know no rule of action — they are ignorant of the 
reasons for moral conduct — they have no foundation 
to rest upon — and until they have been severely 
disciplined by the world are extremely dangerous 
members of society." 

Another great advantage of this natural system 
Recognition °^ discipline is, that it is a system of pure 
of justice. justice and will be recognized by every 
child as such. Whoso suffers nothing more than 
the evil which obviously follows naturally from his 
own misbehavior, is much less likely to think him- 
self wrongly treated than if he suffers an evil arti- 
ficially inflicted on him ; and this will be true of 
children as of men. 



GENERAL PRINCIPLES 191 

Take the case of a boy who is habitually reckless 
of his clothes — scrambles through hedges without 
caution, or is utterly regardless of mud. If he is 
beaten, or sent to bed, he is apt to regard himself as 
ill-used, and his mind is more likely to be occupied 
by thinking over his injuries than repenting of his 
transgressions. But suppose he is required to rectify 
as far as he can the harm he has done — to clean off 
the mud with which he has covered himself, or to 
mend the tear as well as he can. Will he not feel 
that the evil is one of his own producing ? Will he 
not while paying this penalty be continuously 
conscious of the connection between it and its 
cause? And will he not, spite his irritation, recog- 
nize more or less clearly the justice of the arrange- 
ment ? 

If several lessons of this kind fail to produce 
amendment — if suits of clothes are prematurely 
spoiled — if pursuing this same system of discipline 
a father declines to spend money for new ones until 
the ordinary time has elapsed — and if meanwhile, 
there occur occasions on which, having no decent 
clothes to go in, the boy is debarred from joining 
the rest of the family on holiday excursions and fete 
days, it is manifest that while he will keenly feel 
the punishment, he can scarcely fail to trace the 
chain of causation, and to perceive that his own care- 
lessness is the origin of it ; and seeing this, he will not 
have that same sense of injustice as when there is no 



192 MORAL EDUCATION 

obvious connection between the transgression and its 
penalty. 

Again the tempers both of parents and children 
in-feeiing are much less liable to be ruffled under 

from artificial . 

penalties. this s} T stem than under the ordinary sys- 
tem. Instead of letting children experience the 
painful results which naturally follow from wrong 
conduct, the usual course pursued by parents is to 
inflict on themselves certain other painful results. 

A double mischief arises from this. Making, as 
they do, multiplied family laws, and identifying 
their own supremacy and dignity with the mainte- 
nance of these laws, it happens that every transgres- 
sion comes to be regarded as an offence against 
themselves and a cause of anger on their part. Add 
to which the further irritations which result from 
taking upon themselves, in the shape of extra labor 
or cost, those evil consequences which should have 
been allowed to fall on the wrongdoers. 

Similarly with the children. Penalties which the 
necessary reaction of things brings round upon them 
— penalties which are inflicted by impersonal agency, 
produce an irritation that is comparatively slight 
and transient ; whereas, penalties which are volun- 
tarily inflicted by a parent, and are afterwards re- 
membered as caused by him or her, produce an 
irritation both greater and more continued. 

Just consider how disastrous would be the result 
if this empirical method were pursued from the be- 




General principles 193 

ginning. Suppose it were possible for parents to 
take upon themselves the physical sufferings entailed 
on their children by ignorance and awkwardness, 
and that while bearing these evil consequences they 
visited on their children certain other evil conse- 
quences with the view of teaching them the impro- 
priety of their conduct. Suppose that when a child, 
who had been forbidden to meddle with the kettle, 
spilt some boiling water on its foot, the mother 
vicariously assumed the scald and gave a blow in 
place of it ; and similarly in all other cases. Would 
not the daily mishaps be sources of far more anger 
than now ? Would there not be chronic ill-temper 
on both sides ? 

Yet an exactly parallel policy is pursued in after 
years. A father who punishes his boy for carelessly 
or wilfuly breaking a sister's toy, and then himself 
pays for a new toy, does substantially this same 
thing — inflicts an artificial penalty on the trans- 
gressor and takes the natural penalty on himself ; 
his own feelings and those of the transgressor being 
alike needlessly irritated. 

If he simply required restitution to be made, he 
would produce far less heartburning. If he told the 
boy that a new toy must be bought at his, the boy's, 
cost and that his supply of pocket-money must be 
withheld to the needful extent, there would be much 
less cause for ebullition of temper on either side, 
while in the deprivation afterwards felt, the boy 



194 MORAL EDUCATION 

would experience the equitable and salutary conse- 
quence. In brief, the system of discipline by 
natural reactions is less injurious to temper, alike 
because it is perceived on both sides to be nothing 
more than pure justice, and because it more or less 
substitutes the impersonal agency of nature for the 
personal agency of parents. 

Whence also follows the manifest corollary, that 
Estrange- nnder this system the parental and filial 
SSentefrom relation will be a more friendly, and there- 
fore a more influential one. Whether in 
parent of child, anger, however caused, and to 
whomsoever directed, is more or less detrimental. 
But anger in a parent towards a child, and in a child 
towards a parent, is especially detrimental, because 
it weakens that bond of sympathy which is essential 
to a beneficent control. 

In virtue of the general law of association of ideas, 
it inevitably results, both in young and old, that 
dislike is contracted towards things which in our 
experience are habitually connected with disagree- 
able feelings. Or where attachment originally ex- 
isted, it is weakened, or destroyed, or turned into 
repugnance, according to the quantity of painful 
impressions received. Parental wrath, with its ac- 
companying reprimands and castigations, cannot 
fail, if often repeated, to produce filial alienations, 
while the resentment and sulkiness of children can- 
not fail to weaken the affection felt for them, and 



GENERAL PRINCIPLES 195 

may even end in destroying it. Hence the numer- 
ous cases in which parents (and especially fathers, 
who are commonly deputed to express the anger 
and inflict the punishment) are regarded with indif- 
ference, if not with aversion, and hence the equally 
numerous cases in which children are looked upon 
as inflictions. 

Seeing, then, as all must do, that estrangement of 
this kind is fatal to a salutary moral culture, it fol- 
lows that parents cannot be too solicitous in avoiding 
occasions of direct antagonism with their children 
— occasions of personal resentment. And therefore 
they cannot too anxiously avail themselves of this 
discipline of natural consequences — this system of 
letting the penalty be inflicted by the laws of things ; 
which, by saving the parent from the function of a 
penal agent, prevents these mutual exasperations 
and estrangements. 

Thus we see that this method of moral culture by 
experience of the normal reactions, which Four advan- 
is the divinely-ordained method alike for manzed. 
infancy and for adult life, is equally applicable during 
the intermediate childhood and youth. And among 
the advantages of this method we see — First. That 
it gives that rational comprehension of right and 
wrong conduct which results from actual experience 
of the good and bad consequences caused by them. 
Second. That the child, suffering nothing more than 
the painful effects brought upon it by its own wrong 



196 MORAL EDUCATION 

actions, must recognize more or less clearly the justice 
of the penalties. Third. That, recognizing the jus- 
tice of the penalties, and receiving those penalties 
through the working of things, rather than at the 
hands of an individual, its temper will be less dis- 
turbed ; while the parent occujDying the comparative- 
ly passive position of taking care that the natural pen- 
alties are felt, will preserve a comparative equanimity. 
And Fourth. That mutual exasperation being thus 
in great measure prevented, a much happier, and a 
more influential state of feeling will exist between 
parent and child. 

" But what is to be done with more serious mis- 
More serious conduct ? " some will ask. " How is this 

misconduct. plan ^ be carr ied out w ] ien a petty ^ft 

has been committed ? or when a lie has been told ? 
or when some younger brother or sister has been 
ill-used ? " 

Before replying to these questions, let us consider 
the bearings of a few illustrative facts. 

Living in the family of his brother-in-law, a friend 
of ours had undertaken the education of 
his little nephew and niece. This he had 
conducted, more perhaps from natural sympathy 
than from reasoned-out conclusions, in the spirit of 
the method above set forth. The two children were 
in doors his pupils and out of doors his companions. 
They daily joined him in walks and botanizing ex- 
cursions, eagerly sought out plants for him, looked 



GENERAL PRINCIPLES 197 

on while he examined and identified them, and in 
this and other ways were ever gaining both pleasure 
and instruction in his society. In short, morally 
considered, he stood to them much more in the posi- 
tion of parent than either their father or mother did. 

Describing to us the results of this policy, he gave, 
among other instances, the following. One evening, 
having need for some article lying in another part 
of the house, he asked his nephew to fetch it for 
him. Deeply interested as the boy was in some 
amusement of the moment, he, contrary to his wont, 
either exhibited great reluctance or refused, we for- 
get which. His uncle, disapproving of a coercive 
course, fetched it himself, merely exhibiting by his 
manner the annoyance this ill-behavior gave him. 
And when, later in the evening, the boy made over- 
tures for the usual play, they were gravely repelled 
— the uncle manifested just that coldness of feeling 
naturally produced in him, and so let the boy ex- 
perience the necessary consequences of his conduct. 

Next morning at the usual time for rising, our 
friend heard a new voice outside the door, and in 
walked his little nephew with the hot water ; and 
then the boy, peering about the room to see what 
else could be done, exclaimed, " Oh ! you want your 
boots," and forthwith rushed down stairs to fetch 
them. In this and other ways he showed a true 
penitence for his misconduct ; he endeavored by 
unusual services to make up for the service he had 



198 MORAL EDUCATION 

refused ; his higher feelings had of themselves con- 
quered his lower ones, and acquired strength by the 
conquest ; and he valued more than before the 
friendship he thus regained. 

This gentleman is now himself a father ; acts on 
the same system, and finds it answer completely. 
He makes himself thoroughly his children's friend. 
The evening is longed for by them because he w T ill 
be at home, and they especially enjoy the Sunday 
because he is with them all day. Thus possessing 
their perfect confidence and affection, he finds that 
the simple display of his approbation or disapproba- 
tion gives him abundant power of control. 

If, on his return home, he hears that one of his 
boys has been naughty, he behaves toward him 
with that comparative coldness which the conscious- 
ness of the boy's misconduct naturally produces, and 
he finds this a most efficient punishment. The 
mere withholding of the usual caresses is a source 
of the keenest distress — produces a much more pro- 
longed fit of crying than a beating would do. And 
the dread of this purely moral penalty is, he says, 
ever present during his absence : so much so, that 
frequently during the day his children inquire of 
their mamma how they have behaved and whether 
the report will be good. 

Recently, the eldest, an active urchin of five, in 
one of those bursts of animal spirits common in 
healthy children, committed sundry extravagances 



GENERAL PRINCIPLES 199 

during his mamma's absence — cut off part of his 
brother's hair and wounded himself with a razor 
taken from his father's dressing-case. Hearing of 
these occurrences on his return, the father did not 
speak to the boy either that night or next morning. 
Not only was the tribulation great, but the subse- 
quent effect was, that when, a few days after, the 
mamma was about to go out, she was earnestly en- 
treated by the boy not to do so ; and on inquiry, it 
appeared his fear was that he might again transgress 
in her absence. 

We have introduced these facts before replying to 
the question — " What is to be done with Re i ation 
the graver offences ?" for the purpose of parS 1 and 
first exhibiting the relation that may and cMdren - 
ought to be established between parents and chil- 
dren ; for on the existence of this relation depends 
the successful treatment of these graver offences. 
And as a further preliminary, we must now point 
out that the establishment of this relation will result 
from adopting the system we advocate. Already 
we have shown that by letting a child experience 
simply the painful reactions of its own wrong 
actions, a parent in great measure avoids assuming 
the attitude of an enemy, and escapes being regarded 
as one ; but it still remains to be shown that where 
this course has been consistently pursued from the 
beginning, si strong feeling of active friendship will 
be generated. 



200 MORAL EDUCATION 

At present, mothers and fathers are mostly consid- 
now friend- ere ^ D y their offspring as friend-enemies, 
enemies. Determined as their impressions inevitably 
are by the treatment they receive, and oscillating 
as that treatment does between bribery and thwart- 
ing, between petting and scolding, between gentle- 
ness and castigation, children necessarily acquire 
conflicting beliefs respecting the parental character. 

A mother commonly thinks it quite sufficient to 
tell her little boy that she is his best friend, and 
assuming that he is in duty bound to believe her, 
concludes that he will forthwith do so. " It is all 
for your good ; " "I know what is proper for you 
better than you do yourself ;" " You are not old 
enough to understand it now, but when you grow 
up you will thank me for doing what I do ; " — 
these, and like assertions, are daily reiterated. 

Meanwhile the boy is daily suffering positive pen- 
alties, and is hourly forbidden to do this, that, and 
the other, which he was anxious to do. By words 
he hears that his happiness is the end in view, but 
from the accompanying deeds he habitually receives 
more or less pain. Utterly incompetent as he is to 
understand that future which his mother has in 
view, or how this treatment conduces to the happiness 
of that future, he judges by such results as he feels, 
and finding these results any thing but pleasurable, 
he becomes sceptical respecting these professions of 
friendship. 



GENERAL PRINCIPLES 201 

And is it not folly to expect any other issue? 
Must not the child judge by such evidence as he has 
got ? and does not this evidence seem to warrant his 
conclusion? The mother would reason in just the 
same way if similarly placed. If, in the circle of her 
acquaintance, she found some one who was con- 
stantly thwarting her wishes, uttering sharp repri- 
mands, and occasionally inflicting actual penalties 
on her, she would pay but little attention to any pro- 
fessions of anxiety for her welfare which accom- 
panied these acts. Why, then, does she suppose that 
her boy will conclude otherwise? 

But now observe how different will be the results 
if the system we contend for be consist- Better a 
ently pursued — if the mother not only friend, 
avoids becoming the instrument of punishment, but 
plays the part of a friend, by warning her boy of 
the punishments which Nature will inflict. 

Take a case ; and that it may illustrate the mode 
in which this policy is to be early initiated, let it be 
one of the simplest cases. Suppose that, prompted 
by the experimental spirit so conspicuous in children, 
whose proceedings instinctively conform to the in- 
ductive method of inquiry — suppose that so prompted 
the child is amusing himself by lighting pieces of 
paper in the candle and watching them burn. 

If his mother is of the ordinary unreflective stamp, 
she will either, on the plea of keeping the child 
" out of mischief ", or from fear that he will burn 



202 MORAL EDUCATION 

himself, command him to desist, and in case of non- 
compliance will snatch the paper from him. On 
the other hand, should he be so fortunate as to have 
a mother of sufficient rationality, who knows that 
this interest with which the child is watching the 
paper burn results from a healthy inquisitiveness, 
without which he would never have emerged out of 
infantine stupidity, and who is also wise enough to 
consider the moral results of interference, she will 
reason thus : — " If I put a stop to this I shall prevent 
the acquirement of a certain amount of knowledge. 
It is true that I may save the child from a burn ; 
but what then ? He is sure to burn himself some- 
time, and it is quite essential to his safety in life that 
he should learn by experience the properties of flame. 
Moreover, if I forbid him from running this present 
risk, he is sure hereafter to run the same or a greater 
risk when no one is present to prevent him ; where- 
as, if he should have any accident now that I am 
by, I can save him from any great injury ; add to 
which the advantage that he will have in future 
some dread of fire, and will be less likely to burn 
himself to death, or set the house in a flame when 
others are absent. Furthermore, were I to make 
him desist, I should thwart him in the pursuit of 
what is in itself a purely harmless, and indeed, 
instructive gratification, and he would be sure to 
regard me with more or less ill-feeling. Ignorant 
as he is of the pain from which I would save him, 



GENERAL PRINCIPLES 203 

and feeling only the pain of a balked desire, he 
could not fail to look upon me as the cause of that 
pain. To save him from a hurt which he cannot 
conceive, and which has therefore no existence for 
him, I inflict upon him a hurt which he feels keenly 
enough, and so become, from his point of view, a 
minister of evil. My best course then, is simply to 
warn him of the danger, and to be ready to prevent 
any serious damage. " And following out this con- 
clusion, she says to the child — " I fear you will hurt 
yourself if you do that." 

Suppose, now, that the child perseveres — as he will 
very probably do — and suppose that he ends by 
burning himself. What are the results? In the 
first place he has gained an experience which he 
must gain eventually and which, for his own safety, 
he cannot gain too soon. And in the second place 
he has found that his mother's disapproval or warn- 
ing was meant for his welfare, he has a further 
positive experience of her benevolence — a further 
reason for placing confidence in her judgment and 
her kindness — a further reason for loving her. 

Of course, in those occasional hazards where there 
is a risk of broken limbs or other serious Advice bet- 
bodily injury, forcible prevention is called command. 
for. But leaving out these extreme cases, the sys- 
tem pursued should be not that of guarding a 
child against the small dangers into which it daily 
runs, but that of advising and warning it against 



204 MORAL EDUCATION 

them. And by consistently pursuing this course 
a much stronger filial affection will be generated 
than commonly exists. If here, as elsewhere, the 
discipline of the natural reactions is allowed to come 
into play — if in all those out-of-door scramblings and 
in-door experiments, by which children are liable to 
hurt themselves, they are allowed to persevere, subject 
only to dissuasion more or less earnest according to 
the risk, there cannot fail to arise an ever-increasing 
faith in the parental friendship and guidance. 

Not only, as before shown, does the adoption of 
this principle enable fathers and mothers to avoid 
the chief part of that odium which attaches to the 
infliction of positive punishment, but, as we here 
see, it enables them further to avoid the odium that 
attaches to constant thwartings, and even to turn 
each of those incidents which commonly cause 
squabbles, into a means of strengthening the mutual 
good feeling. Instead of being told in words, which 
deeds seem to contradict, that their parents are their 
best friends, children will learn this truth by a con- 
sistent daily experience, and so learning it, will 
acquire a degree of trust and attachment which 
nothing else can give. 

And now having indicated the much more sym- 
pathetic relation which must result from the habitual 
use of this method, let us return to the question 
above put — How is this method to be applied to the 
graver offences ? 



GENERAL PRINCIPLES 205 

Note, in the first place, that these graver offences 
are likelv to be both less frequent and less Grave 

offences Iacc 

grave under the regime we have described frequent, 
than under the ordinary regime. The perpetual ill- 
behavior of many children is itself the consequence 
of that chronic irritation in which they are kept by 
bad management. The state of isolation and an- 
tagonism produced by frequent punishment, neces- 
sarily deadens the sympathies ; necessarily, therefore, 
opens the way to those transgressions which the 
sympathies should check. That harsh treatment 
which children of the same family inflict on each 
other is often, in great measure, a reflex of the harsh 
treatment they receive from adults — partly suggested 
by direct example, and partly generated by the ill- 
temper and the tendency to vicarious retaliation 
which follow chastisement and scoldings. 

It cannot be questioned that the greater activity 
of the affections and happier state of feeling, main- 
tained in children by the discipline we have de- 
scribed, must prevent their sins against each other 
from being either so great or so frequent. Moreover, 
the still more reprehensible offences, as lies and 
petty thefts, will, by the same causes, be dimin- 
ished. Domestic estrangement is a fruitful source 
of such transgressions. It is a law of human nature, 
visible enough to all who observe, that those who 
are debarred the higher gratifications fall back upon 
the lower ; those who have no sympathetic pleasures 



206 MORAL EDUCATION 

seek selfish ones ; and hence, conversely, the main- 
tenance of happier relations between parents and 
children is calculated to diminish the number of 
those offences of which selfishness is the origin. 

When, however, such offences are committed, as 
stm punish- they will occasionally be even under the 
sequences. best system, the discipline of consequences 
may still be resorted to ; and if there exist that bond 
of confidence and affection which we have described, 
this discipline will be found efficient. 

For what are the natural consequences, say, of a 
theft ? They are of two kinds — direct and indirect. 
The direct consequence, as dictated by pure equity, 
is that of making restitution. An absolutely just 
ruler (and every parent should aim to be one) will 
demand that wherever it is possible, a wrong act 
shall be undone by a right one : and in the case of 
theft this implies either the restoration of the thing 
stolen, or, if it is consumed, then the giving of an 
equivalent, which, in the case of a child, may be 
effected out of its pocket-money. The indirect and 
more serious consequence is the grave displeasure of 
parents — a consequence which inevitably follows 
among all peoples sufficiently civilized to regard 
theft as a crime ; and the manifestation of this dis- 
pleasure is, in this instance, the most severe of the 
natural reactions produced by the wrong action. 

" But," it will be said, "the manifestation of par- 
ental displeasure, either in words or blows, is the 



GENERAL PRINCIPLES 207 

ordinary course in these cases : the method leads 
here to nothing new." Very true. Already we 
have admitted that, in some directions, this method 
is spontaneously pursued. Already we have shown 
that there is a more or less manifest tendency for 
educational systems to gravitate towards the true 
system. And here we may remark, as before, that 
the intensity of this natural reaction will, in the 
beneficent order of things, adjust itself to the require- 
ments — that this parental displeasure will vent itself 
in violent measures during comparatively barbarous 
times, when the children are also comparatively bar- 
barous, and will express itself less cruelly in those 
more advanced social states in which, by implica- 
tion, the children are amenable to milder treatment. 

But what it chiefly concerns us here to observe is 
that the manifestation of strong parental displeasure, 
produced by one of these graver offences, will be 
potent for good just in proportion to the warmth of 
the attachment existing between parent and child. 
Just in proportion as the discipline of the natural 
consequences has been consistently pursued in other 
cases, will it be efficient in this case. Proof is within 
the experience of all if they will look for it. 

For does not every man know that when he has 
offended another person, the amount of proportion- 
genuine regret he feels (of course, leaving gj| s?m* ist " 
worldly considerations out of the question) pathy * 
varies with the degree of sympathy he has for that 



208 MORAL EDUCATION 

person ? Is he not conscious that when the person 
offended stands to him in the position of an enemy, 
the having given him annoyance is apt to be a 
source rather of secret satisfaction than of sorrow? 
Does he not remember that where umbrage has been 
taken by some total stranger, he has felt much less 
concern than he would have done had such umbrage 
been taken by one with whom he was intimate ? 
While, conversely, has not the anger of an admired 
and cherished friend been regarded by him as a 
serious misfortune, long and keenly regretted ? 

Clearly, then, the effects of parental displeasure 
upon children must similarly depend upon the pre- 
existing relationship. Where there is an established 
alienation, the feeling of a child who has trans- 
gressed is a purely selfish fear of the evil conse- 
quences likely to fall upon it in the shape of physical 
penalties or deprivations, and after these evil conse- 
quences have been inflicted, there are aroused an 
antagonism and dislike which are morally injurious, 
and tend further to increase the alienation. 

On the contrary, where there exists a warm filial 
affection produced by a consistent parental friend- 
ship — a friendship not dogmatically asserted as an 
excuse for punishments and denials, but daily 
exhibited in ways that a child can comprehend — a 
friendship which avoids needless thwartings, which 
warns against impending evil consequences, and 
which sympathizes with juvenile pursuits — there the 



GENERAL PRINCIPLES 209- 

state of mind caused by parental displeasure will 
not only be salutary as a check to future misconduct 
of like kind, but will also be intrinsically salutary. 

The moral pain consequent upon having, for the 
time being, lost so loved a friend, will stand in place 
of the physical pain usually inflicted, and where 
this attachment exists, will prove equally, if not more, 
efficient ; while instead of the fear and vindictiveness 
excited by the one course, there will be excited by 
the other more or less of sympathy with parental 
sorrow, a genuine regret for having caused it, and a 
desire, by some atonement, to re-establish the habitual 
friendly relationship. Instead of bringing into play 
those purely egoistic feelings whose predominance is 
the cause of criminal acts, there will be brought into 
play those altruistic feelings which check criminal 
acts. Thus the discipline of the natural consequences 
is applicable to grave as well as trivial faults, and 
the practice of it conduces not simply to the repres- 
sion, but to the eradication of such faults. 

In brief, the truth is that savageness begets sav- 
ageness, and gentleness begets gentleness. Gentleness 

begets 

Children who are unsympathetically gentleness. 
treated become relatively unsympathetic ; whereas 
treating them with due fellow-feeling is a means of 
cultivating their fellow-feeling. With family govern- 
ments as with political ones, a harsh despotism 
itself generates a great part of the crimes it has to 
repress; while conversely a mild and liberal rule 



210 MORAL EDUCATION 

not only avoids many causes of dissension, but so 
ameliorates the tone of feeling as to diminish the 
tendency to transgression. 

As John Locke long since remarked, " Great 
severity of punishment does but very little good, 
nay, great harm, in education ; and I believe it will 
be found that, coeteris paribus, those children who 
have been most chastised seldom make the best 
men." In confirmation of which opinion we may 
cite the fact not long since made public by Mr. 
Rogers, Chaplain of the Pentonville Prison, that 
those juvenile criminals who have been whipped 
are those who most frequently return to prison. 

On the other hand, as exhibiting the beneficial 
effects of a kinder treatment, we will instance the 
fact stated to us by a French lady, in whose house 
we recently staid in Paris. Apologizing for the dis- 
turbance daily caused by r a little boy who was un- 
manageable both at home and at school, she 
expressed her fear that there was no remedy save 
that which had succeeded in the case of an elder 
brother ; namely, sending him to an English school. 
She explained that at various schools in Paris this 
elder brother had proved utterly untractable ; that 
in despair they had followed the advice to send him 
to England ; and that on his return home he 
was as good as he had before been bad. And 
this remarkable change she ascribed entirely to 
the comparative mildness of the English discipline. 



MAXIMS AND RULES 211 

II. Maxims and Rules 

After this exposition of principles, our remaining 
space may best be occupied by a few of the chief 
maxims and rules deducible from them ; and with 
a view to brevity we will put these in a more or less 
hortatory form. 

Do not expect from a child any great amount of 

moral goodness. During early years every The child 

• -i- j xiT , n , / atfirsta 

civilized man passes through that phase savage. 

of character exhibited by the barbarous race from 

which he is descended. As the child's features — 

flat nose, forward-opening nostrils, large lips, wide- 

apart eyes, absent frontal sinus, etc., — resemble for 

a time those of the savage, so, too, do his instincts. 

Hence the tendencies to cruelty, to thieving, to lying, 

so general among children — tendencies which, even 

without the aid of discipline, will become more or 

less modified just as the features do. 

The popular idea that children are " innocent ", 
while it may be true in so far as it refers to evil 
knowledge, is totally false in so far as it refers to evil 
impulses, as half an hour's observation in the nursery 
will prove to any one. Boys when left to them- 
selves, as at a public school, treat each other far 
more brutally than men do, and were they left to 
themselves at an earlier age their brutality would be 
still more conspicuous. 

Not only is it unwise to set up a high standard 
for juvenile good conduct, but it is even unwise to 



212 MORAL EDUCATION' 

use very urgent incitements to such good conduct. 
Moral Already most people recognize the detri- 

precocity. mental results of intellectual precocity, but 
there remains to be recognized the truth that there 
is a moral precocity which is also detrimental. 

Our higher moral faculties, like our higher intel- 
lectual ones, are comparatively complex. By con- 
sequence they are both comparatively late in their 
evolution. And with the one as with the other, a 
very early activity produced by stimulation will be 
at the expense of the future character. Hence the 
not uncommon fact that those who during child- 
hood were instanced as models of juvenile goodness, 
by and by undergo some disastrous and seemingly 
inexplicable change, and end by being not above but 
below par, while relatively exemplary men are often 
the issue of a childhood by no means so promising. 

Be content, therefore, with moderate measures 
and moderate results. Constantly bear in mind the 
fact that a higher morality, like a higher intelli- 
gence, must be reached by a slow growth, and you 
will then have more patience with those imperfec- 
tions of nature which your child hourly displays. 
You will be less prone to that constant scolding, and 
threatening, and forbidding, by which many parents 
induce a chronic domestic irritation in the foolish 
hope that they will thus make their children what 
they should be. 

This comparatively liberal form of domestic gov- 



MAXIMS AND RULES 213 

ernment, which does not seek despotically to regulate 
all the details of a child's conduct, neces- Excess of 
sarily results from the system for which controL 
we have been contending. Satisfy yourself with 
seeing that your child always suffers the natural 
consequences of his actions and you will avoid that 
excess of control in which so many parents err. 
Leave him wherever you can to the discipline of ex- 
perience, and you will so save him from that hot- 
house virtue which over-regulation produces in 
yielding natures, or that demoralizing antagonism 
which it produces in independent ones. 

By aiming in all cases to administer the natural 
reactions to your child's actions, you will Parental 
put an advantageous check upon your self - controL 
own temper. The method of moral education pur- 
sued by many, we fear by most, parents, is little else 
than that of venting their anger in the way that first 
suggests itself. The slaps, and rough shakings, -and 
sharp words, with which a mother commonly visits 
her offspring's small offences (many of them not 
offences considered intrinsically), are very generally 
but the manifestations of her own ill-controlled feel- 
ings — result much more from the promptings of 
those feelings than from a wish to benefit the offend- 
ers. 

While they are injurious to her own character, 
these ebullitions tend, by alienating her children 
and by decreasing their respect for her, to diminish 



214 MORAL EDUCATION 

her influence over them. But by pausing in each 
case of transgression to consider what is the natural 
consequence, and how that natural consequence may 
best be brought home to the transgressor, some little 
time is necessarily obtained for the mastery of your- 
self; the mere blind anger first aroused in you 
settles down into a less vehement feeling, and one 
not so likely to mislead you. 

Do not, however, seek to behave as an utterly 
parental passionless instrument. Remember that 
disapproval. Des i^ es the natural consequences of your 
child's conduct which the working of things tends 
to bring round on him, your own approbation or 
disapprobation is also a natural consequence, and 
one of the ordained agencies for guiding him. 

The error which we have been combating is that 
of substituting parental displeasure and its artificial 
penalties, for the penalties which nature has estab- 
lished. But while it should not be substituted for 
these natural j^cnalties, it by no means follows that 
it should not, in some form, accompany them. The 
secondary kind of punishment should not usurp the 
place of the primary kind, but, in moderation, it 
may rightly supplement the primary kind. Such 
amount of disapproval, or sorrow, or indignation, as 
you feel, should be expressed in words or manner or 
otherwise ; subject, of course, to the approval of 
your judgment. The degree and kind of feeling 
produced in you will necessarily depend upon your 



MAXIMS AND RULES 215 

own character, and it is therefore useless to say it 
should be this or that. All that can be recom- 
menended is that you should aim to modify the 
feeling into that which you believe ought to be en- 
tertained. 

Beware, however, of the two extremes, not only 
in respect of the intensity, but in respect of the 
duration of your displeasure. On the one hand, 
anxiously avoid that weak impulsiveness, so general 
amoug mothers, which scolds and forgives almost 
in the same breath. On the other hand, do not 
unduly continue to show estrangement of feeling, 
lest you accustom your child to do without your 
friendship, and so lose your influence over him. 
The moral reactions called forth from you by your 
child's actions, you should as much as possible 
assimilate to those which you conceive would be 
called forth from a parent of perfect nature. 

Be sparing of commands. Command only in 
those cases in which other means are in- commands 
applicable or have failed. " In frequent resort. 
orders the parents' advantage is more considered 
than the child's," says Richter. As in primitive 
societies a breach of law is punished, not so much 
because it is intrinsically wrong as because it is a 
disregard of the king's authority — a rebellion against 
him — so in many families, the penalty visited on a 
transgressor proceeds less from reprobation of the 
offence than from anger at the disobedience. 



216 MORAL EDUCATION 

Listen to the ordinary speeches — " How dare yon 
disobey me?" " I tell you I'll make yon do it, sir," 
"I'll soon teach yon who is master " — and then con- 
sider what the words, the tone, and the manner 
imply. A determination to snbjngate is much more 
conspicuous in them than an anxiety for the child's 
welfare. For the time being the attitude of mind 
differs but little from that of the despot bent on 
punishing a recalcitrant subject. 

The right-feeling parent, however, like the phil- 
anthropic legislator, will not rejoice in coercion, but 
will rejoice in dispensing with coercion. He will 
do without law in all cases where other modes of 
regulating conduct can be successfully employed ; 
and he will regret the having recourse to law when 
it is necessary. As Richter remarks — " The best 
rule in politics is said to be l pas trop goiwemer^ : it 
is also true in education." And in spontaneous con- 
formity with this maxim, parents whose lust of 
dominion is restrained by a true sense of duty, will 
aim to make their children control themselves where- 
ever it is possible, and will fall back upon absolutism 
only as a last resort. 

But whenever you do command, command with 
But to be decision and consistency. If the case is 
obeyed. one which really cannot be otherwise 

dealt with, then issue your fiat, and having issued 
it, never afterward swerve from it. Consider well 
beforehand what you are going to do ; weigh all the 



MAXIMS AND RULES 217 

consequences ; think whether your firmness of pur- 
jDOse will be sufficient ; and then, if you finally 
make the law, enforce it uniformly at whatever 
cost. 

Let your penalties be like the penalties inflicted 
by inanimate nature — inevitable. The hot cinder 
burns a child the first time he seizes it ; it burns 
him the second time ; it burns him the third time ; 
it burns him every time, and he very soon learns 
not to touch the hot cinder. If you are equally 
consistent — if the consequences which you tell your 
child will follow certain acts, follow with like uni- 
formity, he will soon come to respect your laws as 
he does those of Nature. 

And this respect once established will prevent eno> 
less domestic evils. Of errors in education one of 
the worst is that of inconsistency. As in* a com- 
munity, crimes multiply when there is no certain 
administration of justice, so in a family, an immense 
increase of transgressions results from a hesitating 
or irregular infliction of penalties. 

A weak mother, who perpetually threatens and 
rarely performs — who makes rules in haste and re- 
pents of them at leisure — who treats the same offence 
now with severity and now with leniency, according 
as the passing humor dictates, is laying up miseries 
both for herself and her children. She is making 
herself contemptible in their eyes ; she is setting 
them an example of uncontrolled feelings ; she is 



218 MORAL EDUCATION 

encouraging them to transgress by the prospect of 
probable impunity ; she is entailing endless squab- 
bles and accompanying damage to her own temper 
and the tempers of her little ones ; she is reducing 
their minds to a moral chaos, which after-years of 
bitter experience will with difficulty bring into 
order. Better even a barbarous form of domestic 
government carried out consistently, than a human 
one inconsistenly carried out. Again we say, avoid 
coercive measures whenever it is possible to do so, 
but when you find despotism really necessary, be 
despotic in good earnest. 

Bear constantly in mind the truth that the aim 
seif-govem- °f y° ur discipline should be to produce a 
ment the aim. 8e if.g 0vern i n g being, not to produce a be- 
ing to be governed by others. Were your children 
fated to* pass their lives as slaves you could not too 
much accustom them to slavery during their child- 
hood, but as they are by and by to be free men, 
with no one to control their daily conduct, you can- 
not too much accustom them to self-control while 
they are still under your eye. 

This it is which makes the system of discipline 
by natural consequences, so especially appropriate 
to the social state which we in England have now 
reached. Under early, tyrannical forms of society, 
when one of the chief evils the citizen had to fear 
was the anger of his superiors, it was well that dur- 
ing childhood parental vengeance should be a pre- 



MAXIMS AND RULES 219 

dominant means of government. But now that the 
citizen has little to fear from any one — now that the 
good or evil which he experiences throughout life is 
mainly that which in the nature of things results 
from his own conduct — it is desirable that from his 
first years he should begin to learn, experimentally, 
the good or evil consequences which naturally fol- 
low this or that conduct. 

Aim, therefore, to diminish the amount of parental 
government, as fast as you can substitute for it in 
your child's mind that self-government arising from 
a foresight of results. In infancy a considerable 
amount of absolutism is necessary. A three-year 
old urchin playing with an open razor cannot be 
allowed to learn by this discipline of consequences, 
for the consequences may, in such a case, be too 
serious. But as intelligence increases, the number 
of instances calling for peremptory interference may 
be, and should be, diminished, with the view of 
gradually ending them as maturity is approached. 

All periods of transition are dangerous, and the 
most dangerous is the transition from the restraint 
of the family circle to the non-restraint of the world. 
Hence the importance of pursuing the policy we 
advocate, which, alike by cultivating a child's faculty 
of self-restraint, by continually increasing the degree 
in which it is left to its self-restraint, and by so 
bringing it, step by step, to a state of unaided self-re- 
straint, obliterates the ordinary sudden and hazard- 



220 MORAL EDUCATION 

ous change from externally-governed youth to 
internally-governed maturity. 

Let the history of your domestic rule typify, in 
little, the history of our political rule : at the outset, 
autocratic control, where control is really needful ; 
by and by an incipient constitutionalism, in which 
the liberty of the subject gains some express recog- 
nition ; successive extensions of this liberty of the 
subject gradually ending in parental abdication. 

Do not regret the exhibition of considerable self- 

seif-wiii not w ^l on ^ ne P ar ^ °^ y our children. It is 
deplorable. the corre i a ti ve of that diminished ' co- 

erciveness so conspicuous in modern education. 
The greater tendency to assert freedom of action on 
the one side, corresponds to the smaller tendency to 
tyrannize on the other. They both indicate an ap- 
proach to the system of discipline we contend for, 
under which children will be more and more led to 
rule themselves by the experience of natural conse- 
quences, and they are both the accompaniments of 
our more advanced social state. 

The independent English boy is the father of the 
independent English man, and you cannot have the 
last without the first. German teachers say that 
they had rather manage a dozen German boys than 
one English one. Shall we, therefore, wish that 
our boys had the manageableness of the German 
ones, and with it the submissiveness and political 
serfdom of adult Germans ? Or shall we not rather 



MAXIMS AND RULES 221 

tolerate in our boys those feelings which make them 
free men and modify our methods accordingly ? 

Lastly, always remember that to educate rightly 
is not a simple and easy thing, but a Duties of 

parents clis- 

complex and extremely difficult thing : cipiinary. 
the hardest task which devolves upon adult life. 
The rough and ready style of domestic government 
is indeed practicable by the meanest and most un- 
cultivated intellects. Slaps and sharp words are 
penalties that suggest themselves alike to the least 
reclaimed barbarian and the most stolid peasant. 
Even brutes can use this method of discipline, as 
you may see in the growl and half-bite with which 
a bitch will check a too-exigeant puppy. 

But if you would carry out with success a rational 
and civilized system, you must be prepared for con- 
siderable mental exertion — -for some study, some 
ingenuity, some patience, some self-control. You 
will have habitually to trace the consequences of 
conduct — to consider what are the results which in 
adult life follow certain kinds of acts, and then you 
will have to devise some methods by which parallel 
results shall be entailed on the parallel acts of your 
children. 

You will daily be called upon to analyze the 
motives of juvenile conduct: you must distinguish 
between acts that are really good and those which, 
though externally simulating them, proceed from 
inferior impulses, while you must be ever on your 



222 MORAL EDUCATION 

guard against the cruel mistake, not unfrequently 
-made, of translating neutral acts into transgressions, 
or ascribing worse feelings than were entertained. 
You must more or less modify your method to suit 
the disposition of each child ; and must be prepared 
to make further modifications as each child's dispo- 
sition enters on a new phase. 

Your faith will often be taxed to maintain the 
requisite perseverance in a course which seems to 
produce little or no effect. Especially if you are 
dealing with children who have been wrongly 
treated, you must be prepared for a lengthened trial 
of patience before succeeding with better methods ; 
seeing that that which is not easy even where a right 
state of feeling has been established from the be- 
ginning, becomes doubly difficult when a wrong 
state of feeling has to be set right. Not only will 
you have constantly to analyze the motives of your 
children, but you will have to analyze your own 
motives — to discriminate between those internal sug- 
gestions springing from a true parental solicitude, 
and those which spring from your own selfishness, 
from your love of ease, from your lust of dominion. 
And then, more trying still, you will have not only 
to detect, but to curb these baser impulses. 

In brief, you will have to carry on your higher 
education at the same time that } t ou are educating 
your children. Intellectually } t ou must cultivate to 
good purpose that most complex of subjects — human 



MAXIMS AND RULES 223 

nature and its laws, as exhibited in your children, 
in yourself, and in the world. Morally, you must 
keep in constant exercise your higher feelings, and 
restrain your lower. 

It is a truth yet remaining to be recognized, that 
the last stage in the mental development of each 
man and woman is to be reached only through the 
proper discharge of the parental duties. And when 
this truth is recognized, it will be seen how admirable 
is the ordination in virtue of which human beings 
are led by their strongest affections to subject them- 
selves to a discipline which they would else elude. 

While some will probably regard this conception 
of education as it should be, with doubt and dis- 
couragement, others will, we think, perceive in the 
exalted ideal which it involves, evidence of its truth. 
That it cannot be realized by the impulsive, the un- 
sympathetic, and the short-sighted, but demands the 
higher attributes of human nature, they will see to 
be evidence of its fitness for the more advanced 
states of humanity. Though it calls for much labor 
and self-sacrifice, they will see that it promises an 
abundant return of happiness, immediate and re- 
mote. They will see that while in its injurious 
effects on both parent and child a bad system is 
twice cursed, a good system is twice blessed — it 
blesses him that trains and him that's trained. 

It will be seen that we have said nothing in this 
Chapter about the transcendental distinction be- 



224 MORAL EDUCATION 

tween right and wrong, of which wise men know so 
little, and children nothing. All thinkers are 
agreed that we may find the criterion of right in the 
effect of actions, if we do not find the rnle there, 
and that is sufficient for the purpose we have had in 
view. Nor have we introduced the religious ele- 
ment. We have confined our inquiries to a nearer, 
and a much more neglected field, though a very im- 
portant one. Our readers may supplement our 
thoughts in any way they please ; we are only con- 
cerned that they should be accepted as far as they go. 



CHAPTER IV 

PHYSICAL EDUCATION 

Equally at the squire's table after the withdrawal 
of the ladies, at the farmers' market-ordi- The care of 
nary, and at the village ale-house, the ammals - 
topic which, after the political question of the day> 
excites perhaps the most general interest is the man- 
agement of animals. Riding home from hunting, 
the conversation is pretty sure to gravitate towards 
horse-breeding and pedigrees and comments on this 
or that "good point" ; while a day on the moors is 
very unlikely to pass without something being said 
on the treatment of dogs. When crossing the fields 
together from church, the tenants of adjacent farms 
are apt to pass from criticisms on the sermon to 
criticisms on the weather, the crops, and the stock, 
and thence to slide into discussions on the various 
kinds of fodder and their feeding qualities. Hodge 
and Giles, after comparing notes over their respective 
pig-styes, show by their remarks that they have 
been more or less observant of their masters' beasts 
and sheep, and of the effects produced on them by 
this or that kind of treatment. 

Nor is it only among the rural population that the 
regulations of the kennel, the stable, the cow-shed, 

(225) 



226 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 

and the sheep-pen, are favorite subjects. In towns, 
too, the numerous artisans who keep dogs, the young 
men who are rich enough to now and then indulge 
their sporting tendencies, and their more staid sen- 
iors who talk over agricultural progress or read Mr. 
Mechi's annual reports and Mr. Caird's letters to the 
Times, form, when added together, a large portion 
of the inhabitants. Take the adult males through- 
out the kingdom, and a great majority will be found 
to show some interest in the breeding, rearing, or 
training of animals, of one kind or other. 

But, during after-dinner conversations, or at other 
Neglect of times of like intercourse, who hears any- 
heaith. thing said about the rearing of children ? 

When the country gentleman has paid his daily 
visit to the stable, and personally inspected the con- 
dition and treatment of his horses ; when he has 
glanced at his minor live stock, and given directions 
about them, how often does he go up to the nursery 
and examine into its dietary, its hours, its ventila- 
tion ? On his library shelves may be found White's 
Farriery, Stephen's Booh of the Farm, Nimrod On the 
Condition of Hunters, and with the contents of these 
he is more or less familiar: but how many books 
has he read on the management of infancy and 
childhood? The fattening properties of oil-cake, 
the relative values of hay and chopped straw, the 
dangers of unlimited clover, are points on which 
every landlord, farmer, and peasant has some knowl- 



ITS IMPORTANCE 227 

edge; but what proportion of them know much 
about the qualities of the food they give their chil- 
dren, and its fitness to the constitutional needs of 
growing boys and girls ? 

Perhaps the business interests of these classes will 
be assigned as accounting for this anomaly. The 
explanation is inadequate, however, seeing that the 
same contrast holds more or less among other classes. 
Of a score of townspeople few, if any, would prove 
ignorant of the fact that it is undesirable to work a 
horse soon after it has eaten ; and yet, of this same 
score, supposing them all to be fathers, probably 
not one would be found who had considered whether 
the time elapsing between his children's dinner and 
their resumption of lessons was sufficient. Indeed, 
on cross-examination, nearly every man would dis- 
close the latent opinion that the regimen of the 
nursery was no concern of his. " Oh, I leave all 
those things to the women," would probably be the 
reply. And in most cases the tone and manner of 
this reply would convey the implication that such 
cares are not consistent with masculine dignity. 

Consider the fact from any but the conventional 
point of view and it will seem strange that while the 
raising of first-rate bullocks is an occupation on 
which men of education willingly bestow much 
time, inquiry, and thought, the bringing up of fine 
human beings is an occupation tacitly voted un- 
worthy of their attention. Mammas who have been 



228 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 

taught little but languages, music, and accomplish- 
ments, aided by nurses full of antiquated prejudices, 
are held competent regulators of the food, clothing, 
and exercise of children. 

Meanwhile the fathers read books and periodicals, 
attend agricultural meetings, try experiments, and 
engage in discussions, all with the view of discover- 
ing how to fatten prize pigs ! Infinite pains will be 
taken to produce a racer that shall win the Derby : 
none to produce a modern athlete. Had Gulliver nar- 
rated of the Laputans that the men vied with each 
other in learning how best to rear the offspring of other 
creatures, and were careless of learning how best to 
rear their own offspring, he would have paralleled 
any of the other absurdities he ascribes to them. 

The matter is a serious one, however. Ludicrous 
First a good as * s ^ ne antithesis, the fact it expresses is 
ammai. n( ^. } ess di sas trous. As remarks a sug- 

gestive writer, the first requisite to success in life is 
" to be a good animal "; and to be a nation of good 
animals is the first condition to national prosperity. 
Not only is it that the event of a war often turns on 
the strength and hardiness of soldiers, but it is that 
the contests of commerce are in part determined by 
the bodily endurance of producers. 

Thus far we have found no reason to fear trials of 
strength with other races in either of these fields. 
But there are not wanting signs that our powers will 
presently be taxed to the uttermost. Already, under 



ITS IMPORTANCE 229 

the keen competition of modern life, the application 
required of almost every one is such as few can bear 
without more or less injury. Already thousands 
break down under the high pressure they are subject 
to. If this pressure continues to increase, as it seems 
likely to do, it will try severely all but the soundest 
constitutions. Hence it is becoming of especial im- 
portance that the training of children should be so 
carried on, as not only to fit them mentally for the 
struggle before them, but also to make them physic- 
ally fit to bear its excessive wear and tear. 

Happily the matter is beginning to attract atten- 
tion. The writings of Mr. Kingsley indicate a reac- 
tion against over-culture ; carried, as reactions usually 
are, somewhat too far. Occasional letters and lead- 
ers in the newspapers have shown an awakening 
interest in physical training. And the formation of 
a school, significantly nicknamed that of " muscular 
Christianity ", implies a growing opinion that our 
present methods of bringing up children do not 
sufficiently regard the welfare of the body. The 
topic is evidently ripe for discussion. 

To conform the regimen of the nursery and the 
school to the established truths of modern rrho C .. QTW>Q 

X JIG bOlfcJIlCtJ 

science — this is the desideratum. It is oflife * 
time that the benefits which our sheep and oxen have 
for years past derived from the investigations of the 
laboratory, should be participated in by our children. 
Without calling in question the great importance of 



230 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 

horse-training and pig-feeding, we would suggest 
that, as the rearing of well-grown men and women 
is also of some moment, the conclusions indicated 
by theory, and edorsed by practice, ought to be 
acted on in the last case as in the first. 

Probably not a few will be startled — perhaps of- 
fended — by this collocation of ideas. But it is a 
fact not to be disputed, and to which we had best 
reconcile ourselves, that man is subject to the same 
organic laws as inferior creatures. No anatomist, 
no physiologist, no chemist, will for a moment hesi- 
tate to assert, that the general principles which rule 
over the vital processes in animals equally rule over 
the vital processes in man. And a candid admis- 
sion of this fact is not without its reward : namely, 
that the truths established by observation and ex- 
periment on brutes, become more or less available 
for human guidance. Rudimentary as is the Science 
of Life, it has already attained to certain funda- 
mental principles underlying the development of all 
organisms, the human included. That which has 
now to be done, and that which we shall endeavor 
in some measure to do, is to show the bearing of 
these fundamental principles upon the physical 
training of childhood and youth. 

The rhythmical tendency which is traceable in 
The quantity a ^ departments of social life — which is 
of food. illustrated in the access of despotism after 

revolution, or, among ourselves, in the alternation 



THE FOOD OF CHILDREN 231 

cf reforming epochs and conservative epochs — 
which, after a dissolute age, brings an age of ascetic- 
ism, and conversely — which, in commerce, produces 
the regularly recurring inflations and panics — which 
carries the devotees of fashion from one absurd ex- 
treme to the opposite one ; — this rhythmical tendency 
affects also our table-habits, and by implication, 
the dietary of the young. After a period distin- 
guished by hard drinking and hard eating, has 
come a period of comparative sobriety, which, in 
teetotalism and vegetarianism, exhibits extreme 
forms of its protest against the riotous living of the 
past. 

And along with this change in the regimen of 
adults, has come a parallel change in the regimen 
for boys and girls. In past generations, the belief 
was, that the more a child could be induced to eat, 
the better ; and even now, among farmers and in 
remote districts, where traditional ideas most linger, 
parents may be found who tempt their children to 
gorge themselves. But among the educated classes, 
who chiefly display this reaction towards abstemious- 
ness, there may be seen a decided leaning to the 
under-feeding, rather than the over-feeding, of chil- 
dren. Indeed their disgust for bygone animalism 
is more clearly shown in the treatment of their off- 
spring than in the treatment of themselves ; seeing 
that while their disguised asceticism is, in so far 
as their personal conduct is concerned, kept in 



232 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 

check by their appetites, it has full play in legislat- 
ing for juveniles. 

That over-feeding and under-feeding are both bad 
is a truism. Of the two, however, the last is the 
worst. As writes a high authority, " the effects of 
casual repletion are less prejudicial, and more easily 
corrected, than those of inanition."* Add to which, 
that where there has been no injudicious interference, 
repletion will seldom occur. " Excess is the vice 
rather of adults than of the young, who are rarely 
either gourmands or epicures, unless through the 
fault of those who rear them."* This system of re- 
striction which many parents think so necessary, is 
based upon very inadequate observation and very 
erroneous reasoning. There is an over-legislation 
in the nursery as well as an over-legislation in the 
State, and one of the most injurious forms of it is 
this limitation in the quantity of food. 

" But are children to be allowed to surfeit them- 
Appetite a selves ? Shall they be suffered to take 
good gmde. their fill of dainties and make themselves 
ill, as they certainly will do?" As thus put, the 
question admits of but one reply. But as thus put, 
it assumes the point at issue. We contend that, as 
appetite is a good guide to all the lower creation — 
as it is a good guide to the infant — as it is a good 
guide to the invalid — as it is a good guide to the 
differently-placed races of men, and as it is a good 

* Cyclopaedia of Practical Medicine. 



THE FOOD OF CHILDREN 233 

guide for every adult who leads a healthful life — it 
may safely be inferred that it is a good guide for 
childhood. It would be strange indeed were it here 
alone untrustworthy. 

Probably not a few will read this reply with some 
impatience ; being able, as they think, to Gluttony a 
cite facts totally at variance with it. It S!r!S- nce 
Avill appear absurd if we deny, the rele- tlon " 
vancy of these facts ; and yet the paradox is quite 
defensible. The truth is, that the instances of excess 
which such persons have in mind, are usually the 
consequences of the restrictive system they seem to 
justify. They are the sensual reactions caused by a 
more or less ascetic regimen. 

They illustrate on a small scale that commonly 
remarked fact, that those who during youth have 
been subject to the most rigorous discipline, are apt 
afterward to rush into the wildest extravagances. 
They are analogous to those frightful phenomena, 
once not uncommon in convents, where nuns sud- 
denly lapsed from the extremest austerities into an 
almost demoniac wickedness. They simply exhibit 
the unjrollable vehemence of a long-denied desire. 

Consider the ordinary tastes and the ordinary 
treatment of children. The love of sweets The taste 
is conspicuous and almost universal among of sweets - 
them. Probably ninety-nine people in a hundred, 
presume that there is nothing more in this than 
gratification of the palate, and that, in common with 



234 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 

other sensual desires, it should be discouraged. The 
physiologist, however, whose discoveries lead him to 
an ever-increasing reverence for the arrangements of 
things, will suspect that there is something more in 
this love of sweets than the current hypothesis sup- 
jDOses ; and a little inquiry confirms the suspicion. 
Any work on organic chemistry shows that sugar 
plays an important, part in the vital processes. Both 
saccharine and fatty matters are eventually oxidized 
in the body, and there is an accompanying evolu-* 
tion of heat. Sugar is the form to which sundry 
other compounds have to be reduced before they are 
available as heat-making food, and this formation of 
sugar is carried on in the body. Not only is starch 
changed into sugar in the course of digestion, but it 
has been proved by M. Claude Bernard that the 
liver is a factory in which other constituents of food 
are transformed into sugar. 

Now, when to the fact that children have a marked 
desire for this valuable heat food, we join the fact 
that they have usually a marked dislike to that food 
which gives out the greatest amount of heat during 
its oxidation (namely, fat), we shall see strong reason 
for thinking that excess of the one compensates for 
defect of the other — that the organism demands 
more sugar because it cannot deal with much fat. 

Again, children are usually very fond of vegetable 
Fruit. acids. Fruits of all kinds are their de- 

light, and, in the absence of anything better, they 



THE FOOD OF CHILDREN 235 

will devour unripe gooseberries and the sourest of 
crabs. Now, not only are vegetable acids, in com- 
mon with mineral ones, very good tonics, and ben- 
eficial as such when taken in moderation, but they 
have, when administered in their natural forms, 
other advantages. "Ripe fruit," says Dr. Andrew 
Combe, " is more freely given on the Continent than 
in this country, and, particularly when the bowels 
act imperfectly, it is often very useful." 

See, then, the discord between the instinctive 
wants of children and their habitual treat- instinctive 
ment. Here are two dominant desires, denied, 
which there is good reason to believe express certain 
needs of the juvenile constitution, and not only are 
they ignored in the nursery regimen, but there is a 
general tendency to forbid the gratification of them. 
Bread-and-milk in the morning, tea and bread-and- 
butter at night, or some dietary equally insipid, is 
rigidly adhered to, and any ministration to the palate 
is thought not only needless but wrong. 

What is the necessary consequence? When on 
fete-days there is an unlimited access to 
good things — when a gift of pocket-money 
brings the contents of the confectioner's window 
within reach, or when by some accident the free run 
of a fruit-garden is obtained — then the long-denied, 
and therefore intense, desires lead to great excesses. 
There is an impromptu carnival, caused not only by 
the release from past restraints, but also by the COn- 



Natural 
reaction. 



236 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 

sciousness that a long Lent will begin on the mor- 
row. And then, when the evils of repletion display 
themselves, it is argued that children must not be 
left to the guidance of their appetites ! These dis- 
astrous results of artificial restrictions are them- 
selves cited as proving the need for further restric- 
tions ! 

We contend, therefore, that the reasoning com- 
monly used to justify this system of interference is 
vicious. We contend that, were children allowed 
daily to partake of these more sapid edibles, for 
which there is a physiological requirement, they 
would rarely exceed, as they now mostly do when 
they have the opportunity : were fruit, as Dr. Combe 
recommends, "to constitute a part of the regular 
food " (given, as he advises, not between meals, but 
along with them), there would be none of that craving 
which prompts the devouring of such fruits as crabs 
and sloes. And similarly in other cases. 

Not only is it that the d priori reasons for trusting 
Parents not ^ ne appetites' of children are so strong, 
infallible. an( j ^^t the reasons assigned for distrust- 
ing them are invalid, but it is that no other guidance 
is worthy of any confidence. What is the value of 
this parental judgment, set up as an alternative reg- 
ulator? When to "Oliver asking for more", the 
mamma or the governess replies in the negative, on 
what data does she proceed ? She thinks he has had 
enough. 



THE FOOD OF CHILDREN 237 

But where are her grounds for so thinking ? Has 
she some secret understanding with the boy's stom- 
ach — some clairvoyant power enabling her to discern 
the needs of his body ? If not, how can she safely 
decide? Does she not know that the demand of the 
system for food is determined by numerous and in- 
volved causes — varies with the temperature, with the 
hygrometric state of the air, with the electric state of 
the air — varies also according to the exercise taken, 
according to the kind and quality of food eaten at 
the last meal, and according to the rapidity with 
which the last meal was digested? How can she 
calculate the result of such a combination of causes ? 

As we heard said by the father of a five-y ears-old 
boy, who stands a head taller than most of his age, 
and is proportionately robust, rosy, and active : — 
" I can see no artificial standard by which to mete 
out his food. If I say, ' This much is enough,' it is 
a mere guess ; and the guess is as likely to be wrong- 
as right. Consequently, having no faith in guesses, 
I let him eat his fill." And certainly, any one 
judging of his policy by its effect, would be con- 
strained to admit its wisdom. 

In truth, this confidence, with which most parents 
take upon themselves to legislate for the stomachs 
of their children, proves their unacquaintance with 
the principles of physiology : if they knew more, 
they would be more modest. " The pride of science 
is humble when compared with the pride of ignor- 



238 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 

ance." If any one would learn how little faith is to 
be placed in human judgments, and how much in 
the pre-established arrangements of things, let him 
compare the rashness of the inexperienced physician 
with the caution of the most advanced ; or let him 
dip into Sir John Forbes' work, On Nature and Art in 
the Cure of Disease ; and he will then see that, in pro- 
portion as men gain a greater knowledge of the laws 
of life, they come to have less confidence in them- 
selves, and more in Nature. 

Turning from the question of quantity of food to 
The quality that °f Q ua ^ty) we may discern the same 
of food. ascetic tendency. Not simply a more or 

less restricted diet, but a comparatively low diet, is 
thought proper for children. The current opinion 
is that they should have but little animal food. 
Among the less wealthy classes, economy seems to 
have dictated this opinion — the wish has been father 
to the thought. Parents not affording to buy much 
meat, and liking meat themselves, answer the 
petitions of juveniles with — " Meat is not good for 
little boys and girls ; " and this, at first, probably 
nothing but a convenient excuse, has N by repetition 
grown into an article of faith : while the classes 
with whom cost is not a consideration, have been 
swayed partly by the examjile of the majority, 
partly by the influence of nurses drawn from the 
lower classes, and in some measure by the reaction 
against past animalism. 



THE FOOD OF CHILDREN 239 

If, however, we inquire for the basis of this opin- 
ion, we find little or none. It is a dogma children's 
repeated and received without proof, like nutritive. 
that which, for thousands of years, insisted on the 
necessity of swaddling-clothes. It may indeed be 
true that, to the young child's stomach, not yet en- 
dowed with much muscular power, meat, which 
requires considerable trituration before it can be 
made into chyme, is an unfit aliment. But this ob- 
jection does not tell against animal food from which 
the fibrous part has been extracted, nor does it apply 
when, after the lapse of two or three years, consider- 
able muscular vigor has been acquired. And while 
the evidence in support of this dogma, partially 
valid in the case of very young children, is not valid 
in the case of older children, who are nevertheless 
ordinarily treated in conformity with the dogma, 
the adverse evidence is abundant and conclusive. 
The verdict of science is exactly opposite to the pop- 
ular opinion. We have put the question to two of 
our leading physicians, and to several of the most 
distinguished physiologists, and they uniformly 
agree in the conclusion, that children should have a 
diet not less nutritive, but, if anything, more nutritive 
than that of adults. 

The grounds for this conclusion are obvious, and 
the reasoning simple. It needs but to Man and 
compare the vital processes of a man with boy * 
those of a boy, to see at once that the demand for 



240 PHYSICAL EDUCATION' 

sustenance is relatively greater in the boy than in 
the man. 

What are the ends for which a man requires food ? 
Each day his body undergoes more or less wear — 
wear through muscular exertion, wear of the nervous 
system through mental actions, wear of the viscera 
in carrying on the functions of life — and the tissue 
thus wasted has to be renewed. Each day, too, by 
perpetual radiation, his body loses a large amount 
of heat ; and as, for the continuance of the vital 
actions, the temperature of the body must be main- 
tained, this loss has to be compensated by a con- 
stant production of heat : to which end certain 
constituents of the food are unceasingly undergoing 
oxidation. To make up for the day's waste, and to 
supply fuel for the day's expenditure of heat, are, 
then, the sole purposes for which the adult requires 
food. 

Consider, now, the case of the boy. He, too, 
wastes the substance of his bocty by action, and it 
needs but to note his restless activity to see that, in 
proportion to his bulk, he probably wastes as much 
as a man. He, too, loses heat by radiation, and, as 
his body exposes a greater surface in proportion to 
its mass than does that of a man, and therefore loses 
heat more rapidly, the quantity of heat-food he re- 
quires is, bulk for bulk, greater than that required 
by a man. So that even had the boy no other 
vital processes to carry on than the man has, he 



THE FOOD OF CHILDREN 241 

would need, relatively to his size, a somewhat larger 
supply of nutriment. 

But, besides repairing his body and maintaining 
its heat, the boy has to make new tissue — to grow. 
After waste and thermal loss have been provided 
for, such surplus of nutriment as remains goes to 
the further building up of the frame, and only in 
virtue of this surplus is normal growth possible — 
the growth that sometimes takes place in the absence 
of such surplus, causing a manifest prostration con- 
sequent upon defective repair. How peremptory is 
the demand of the unfolding organism for materials, 
is seen alike in that " school-boy hunger ", which 
after-life rarely parallels in intensity, and in the 
comparatively quick return of appetite. And if 
there needs further evidence of this extra necessity 
for nutriment, we have it in the fact that, during 
the famines following shipwrecks and other disas- 
ters, the children are the first to die. 

This relatively greater need for nutriment being 
admitted, as it must perforce be, the ques- Disestion 
tion that remains is — shall we meet it by economized - 
giving an excessive quantity of what may be called 
dilute food, or a more moderate quantity of concen- 
trated food? The nutriment obtainable from a 
given weight of meat is obtainable only from a 
larger weight of bread, or from a still larger weight 
of potatoes, and so on. To fulfill the requirement, 
the quantity must be increased as the nutritiveness 



242 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 

is diminished. Shall we, then, respond to the extra 
wants of the growing child by giving an adequate 
quantity of food as good as that of adults ? Or, re- 
gardless of the fact that its stomach has to dispose 
of a relatively larger quantity even of this good 
food, shall we further tax it by giving an inferior 
food in still greater quantity ? 

The answer is tolerably obvious. The more the 
labor of digestion can be economized, the more 
energy is left for the purposes of growth and action. 
The functions of the stomach and intestines cannot 
be performed without a large supply of blood and 
nervous power ; and in the comparative lassitude 
that follows a hearty meal, every adult has proof 
that this supply of blood and nervous power is at 
the expense of the system at large. If the requisite 
nutriment is furnished by a great quantity of innu- 
tritious food, more work is entailed on the viscera 
than when it is furnished by a moderate quantity of 
nutritious food. This extra work is so much sheer 
loss — a loss which in children shows itself either in 
diminished energy, or in smaller growth, or in both. 
The inference is, then, that they should have a diet 
which combines, as much as possible, nutritiveness 
and digestibility. 

It is doubtless true that boys and girls may be 
vegetarian brought up upon an exclusively, or almost 
diet. exclusively, vegetable diet. Among the 

upper classes are to be found children to whom 



THE FOOD OF CHILDREN 243 

comparatively little meat is given, and who, never- 
theless, grow and appear in good health. Animal 
food is scarcely tasted by the offspring of laboring 
people ; and yet they reach a healthy maturity. 

But these seemingly adverse facts have by no 
means the weight commonly supposed. In the first 
place, it does not follow that those who in early 
years nourish on bread and potatoes, w T ill eventually 
reach a fine development ; and a comparison be- 
tween the agricultural laborers and the gentry in 
England, or between the middle and lower classes in 
France, is by no means in favor of vegetable feeders. 

In the second place, the question is not only a 
question of bulk, but also a question of quality. A 
soft, flabby flesh makes as good a show as a firm one ; 
but though to the careless eye, a child of full, flaccid 
tissue may appear the equal of one whose fibres are 
well toned, a trial of strength will prove the differ- 
ence. Obesity in adults is often a sign of feebleness. 
Men lose weight in training. And hence the ap- 
pearance of these low-fed children is by no means 
conclusive. 

In the third place, not only size but energy has to 
be considered. Between children of the meat-eating 
classes and those of the bread and potato-eating 
classes, there is a marked contrast in this respect. 
Both in mental and physical vivacity the low-fed 
peasant-boy is greatly inferior to the better-fed son 
of a gentleman. 



244 PHYSICAL EDUCATION" 

If we compare different classes of animals, or dif- 

Energy de- ferent races of men, or the same animals 

Sutdtive° n or men when differently fed, we find still 

more distinct proof that the degree of energy 

essentially depends on the nutritiveness of the food. 

In a cow, subsisting on so innntritive a food as 
grass, we see that the immense quantity required to 
be eaten necessitates an enormous digestive system ; 
that the limbs, small in comparison with the body, 
are burdened by its weight ; that in carrying about 
this heavy body and digesting this excessive quantity 
of food, a great amount of force is expended ; 
and that, having but little energy remaining, the 
creature is sluggish. 

Compare with the cow a horse — an animal of 
nearly allied structure, but adapted to a more con- 
centrated food. Here we see that the body, and 
more especially its abdominal region, bears a much 
smaller ratio to the limbs ; that the powers are not 
taxed by the support of such massive viscera, nor 
the digestion of so bulky a food ; and that as a con- 
sequence, there is great locomotive energy and con- 
siderable vivacity. 

If, again, we contrast the stolid inactivity of the 
graminivorous sheep with the liveliness of a dog, sub- 
sisting upon flesh 01 farinaceous food, or a mixture 
of the two, we see a difference similar in kind, but 
still greater in degree. And after walking through 
the Zoological Gardens, and noting the restlessness 



THE FOOD OF CHILDREN 245 

with which the carnivorous animals pace up and 
down their cages, it needs but to remember that none 
of the herbivorous animals habitually display this 
superfluous energy, to see how clear is the relation 
between concentration of food and degree of activity. 
That these differences are not directly consequent 
upon differences of constitution, as some well-fed 

_. races dom- 

may argue, but are directly consequent mant. 
upon differences in the food which the creatures are 
constituted to subsist on, is proved by the fact, that 
they are observable between different divisions of 
the same species. Take the case of mankind. The 
Australians, Bushmen, and others of the lowest 
savages who live on roots and berries, varied by 
larvae of insects and the like meagre fare, are com- 
paratively puny in stature, have large abdomens, 
soft and undeveloped muscles, and are quite unable 
to cope with Europeans, either in a struggle or in 
prolonged exertion. Count up the wild races who 
are well grown, strong and active, as the Kaffirs, 
North-American Indians, and Patagonians, and you 
find them large consumers of flesh. The ill-fed 
Hindoo goes down before the Englishman fed on 
more nutritive food ; to whom he is as inferior m 
mental as in physical energy. And generally, we 
think, the history of the world shows that the well- 
fed races have been the energetic and dominant 
races. 

Still stronger, however, becomes the argument, 



246 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 

when we find that the same individual animal be- 
Effectupon comes capable of more or less exertion 
the horse. according as its food is more or less nutri- 
tious. This has been clearly demonstrated in the 
case of the horse. Though flesh may be gained by 
a grazing horse, strength is lost ; as putting him to 
hard work proves. " The consequence of turning 
horses out to grass is relaxation of -the muscular 
system. " " Grass is a very good preparation for a 
bullock for Smithfield market, but a very bad one 
for a hunter." 

It was well known of old that, after passing the 
summer months in the fields, hunters required some 
months of stable-feeding before becoming able to 
follow the hounds, and that they did not get into 
good condition until the beginning of the next 
spring. And the modern practice is that insisted on 
by Mr. Apperley — " Never to give a hunter what is 
called ' a summer's run at grass ', and except under 
particular and very favorable circumstances, never 
to turn him out at all." That is to say, never give 
him poor food : great energy and endurance are to 
be obtained only by the continuous use of very 
nutritive food. So true is this that, as proved by 
Mr. Apperley, prolonged high-feeding will enable a 
middling horse to equal, in his performances, a first- 
rate horse fed in the ordinary way. To which 
various evidences add the familiar fact that, when a 
horse is required to do double duty, it is the practice 



THE FOOD OF CHILDREN 247 

to give him beans — a food containing a larger pro- 
portion of nitrogenous or flesh-making material, than 
his habitual oats. 

Once more, in the case of individual men the 
truth has been illustrated with equal, or Effects on 
still greater, clearness. We do not refer the laborer - 
to men in training for feats of strength, whose 
regimen, however, thoroughly conforms to the doc- 
trine. We refer to the experience of railway con- 
tractors and their laborers. It has been for years 
past a well-established fact that the English navvy, 
eating largely of flesh, is far more efficient than a 
Continental navvy living on a less nutritive food : so 
much more efficient, that English contractors for 
Continental railways have habitually taken their 
laborers with them. 

That difference of diet and not difference of race 
caused this superiority, has been of late distinctly 
shown. For it has turned out, that when the Con- 
tinental navvies live in the same style as their Eng- 
lish competitors, they presently rise, more or less 
nearly, to a par with them in efficiency. To which 
fact let us here add the converse one, to which we 
can give personal testimony based upon six months' 
experience of vegetarianism, that abstinence from 
meat entails diminished energy of both body and 
mind. 

Do not these various evidences distinctly endorse 
our argument respecting the feeding of children ? 



248 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 

Do they not imply that, even supposing the same 
stature and bulk to be attained on an innutritive as 
on a nutritive diet, the quality of tissue is greatly 
inferior ? Do they not establish the position that, 
where energy as well as growth has to be maintained, 
it can only be done by high feeding? Do they not 
confirm the d priori conclusion that, though a child 
of whom little is expected in the way of bodily or 
mental activity, may thrive tolerably well on farina- 
ceous substances, a child who is daily required, not 
only to form the due amount of new tissue, but to 
supply the waste consequent on great muscular action, 
and the further waste consequent on hard exercise of 
brain, must live on substances containing a larger 
ratio of nutritive matter ? And is it not an obvious 
corollary, that denial of this better food will be at 
the expense either of growth, or of bodily activity, 
or of mental activity, as constitution and circum- 
stances may determine? We believe no logical 
intellect will question it. To think otherwise is to 
entertain in a disguised form the old fallacy of the 
perpetual-motion schemers — that it is possible to get 
power out of nothing. 

Before leaving the question of food, a few words 
variety of must be said on another requisite — variety. 
food. j n ^g reS p ec t the dietary of the young is 

very faulty. If not, like our soldiers, condemned to 
"twenty years of boiled beef", our children have 
mostly to bear a monotony which, though less 



THE FOOD OF CHILDREN 249 

extreme and less lasting, is quite as clearly at vari- 
ance with the laws of health. At dinner, it is true, 
they usually have food that is more or less mixed, 
and that is changed day by day. But week after 
week, month after month, year after year, comes the 
same breakfast of brcad-and-milk, or, it may be, oat- 
meal porridge. And with like persistence the day is 
closed, perhaps with a second edition of the bread- 
and-miik, perhaps with tea and bread-and-butter. 
This practice is opposed to the dictates of physi- 
ology. The satiet}^ produced by an often- chanffe 
repeated dish, and the gratification caused essentiaL 
by one long a stranger to the palate, are not mean- 
ingless, as many carelessly assume, but they are the 
incentives to a wholesome diversity of diet. It is a 
fact, established by numerous experiments, that 
there is scarcely any one food, however good, which 
supplies in due proportions or right forms all the 
elements required for carrying on the vital processes 
in a normal manner : from whence it is to be in- 
ferred that frequent change of food is desirable to 
balance the supply of all the elements. It is a 
further fact, well known to physiologists, that the 
enjoyment given by a much-liked food is a nervous 
stimulus, which, by increasing the action of the 
heart and so propelling the blood with increased 
vigor, aids in the subsequent digestion. And these 
truths are in harmony with the maxims of modern 
cattle-feeding, which dictate a rotation of diet. 



250 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 

Not only, however, is periodic change of food 
Mixture YGr J desirable, but, for the same reasons, 
of food. •{. - g vei y desirable that a mixture of food 

should be taken at each meal. The better balance 
of ingredients, and the greater nervous stimulation, 
are advantages which hold here as before. If facts 
are asked for, we may name as one, the compara- 
tive ease with which the stomach disposes of a 
French dinner, enormous in quantity but extremely 
varied in material. Few will contend that an equal 
weight of one kind of food, however well cooked, 
could be digested with as much facility. If any 
desire further facts, they may find them in every 
modern book on the management of animals. Ani- 
mals thrive best when each meal is made up of 
several things. And indeed, among men of science 
the truth has been long ago established. The ex- 
periments of Goss and Stark " afford the most 
decisive proof of the advantage, or rather the neces- 
sity, of a mixture of substances, in order to pro- 
duce the compound which is the best adapted for 
the action of the stomach."* 

Should any object, as probably many will, that a 
rotating dietary for children, and one which also 
requires a mixture of food at each meal, would 
entail too much trouble, we reply, that no trouble is 
thought too great which conduces to the mental 
development of children, and that for their future wel- 

*Cyclop8edia of Anatomy and Physiology. 



THE FOOD OF CHILDREN 251 

fare, good bodily development is equally important. 
Moreover, it seems alike sad and strange that a trouble 
which is cheerfully taken in the fattening of pigs, 
should be thought too great in the rearing of children. 
One more paragraph, with the view of warning 
those who may propose to adopt the reg- 
from low- imen indicated. The change must not be 

feeding. 

made suddenly, for continued low-feeding 
so enfeebles the system, as to disable it from at once 
dealing with a high diet. Deficient nutrition is 
itself a cause of dyspepsia. This is true even of 
animals. " When calves are fed with skimmed 
milk, or whey, or other poor food, they are liable to 
indigestion."* Hence, therefore, where the energies 
are low, the transition to a generous diet must be 
gradual, each increment of strength gained, justify- 
ing a further increase of nutriment. 

Further, it should always be borne in mind that 
the concentration of nutriment may be carried too 
far. A bulk sufficient to fill the stomach is one 
requisite of a proper meal, and this requisite nega- 
tives a diet deficient in those waste matters which 
give adequate mass. Though the size of the diges- 
tive organs is less in the well-fed civilized races than 
in the ill-fed savage ones, and though their size may 
eventually diminish still further, yet, for the time 
being, the bulk of the ingesta must be determined 
by the existing capacity. 

* Morton's Cyclopaedia of Agriculture. 



252 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 

But, paying due regard to these two qualifica- 
tions, our conclusions are — that the food of children 
should be highly nutritive ; that it should be varied 
at each meal and at successive meals ; and that it 
should be abundant. 

With clothing as with food, the established ten- 
scanty dency is toward an improper scantness. 

clothing. Here, too, asceticism peeps out. There is 
a current theory, vaguely entertained, if not put 
into a definite formula, that the sensations are to be 
disregarded. They do not exist for our guidance, 
but to mislead us, seems to be the prevalent belief- 
reduced to its naked form. 

It is a grave error : we are much more beneficent- 
ly constituted. It is -not obedience to the sensations, 
but disobedience to them, which is -the habitual 
cause of bodily evils. It is not the eating when 
hungry, but the eating in the absence of appetite, 
which is bad. It is not the drinking when thirsty, 
but the continuing to drink when thirst has ceased, 
that is the vice. Harm results not from breathing 
that fresh air which every healthy person enjoys, 
but from continuing to breathe foul air, spite of the 
protest of the lungs. Harm results not from taking 
that active exercise which, as every child shows us, 
nature strongly prompts, but from a persistent dis- 
regard of nature's promptings. Not that mental 
activity which is spontaneous and enjoyable does 
the mischief, but that which is persevered in after a 



CLOTHING 253 

hot or aching head commands desistance. Not that 
bodily exertion which is pleasant or indifferent, 
docs injury, hut that which is continued when ex- 
haustion forbids. 

It is i rue that, in those who have long led unhealthy 
lives, the sensations are not trustworthy guides. 
People who have for years been almost constantly 
in-doors, who have exercised their brains very much 
and their bodies scarcely at all, who in eating 
have obeyed their clocks without consulting their 
stomachs, may very likely be mislead by their 
vitiated feelings. But their abnormal state is itself 
the result of transgressing their feelings. Had they 
from childhood up never disobeyed what we may 
term the physical conscience, it would not have 
been seared, but would have remained a faithful 
monitor. 

Among the sensations serving for our guidance 
are those of heat and cold, and a clothing M Hardening » 
for children which does not carefully con- chlldren - 
suit these sensations is to be condemned. The 
common notion about " hardening " is a grievous 
delusion. Children are not unfrequently "hard- 
ened " out of the world, and those who survive, 
permanently suffer either in growth or constitution. 
" Their delicate appearance furnishes ample indica- 
tion of the mischief thus produced, and their fre- 
quent attacks of illness might prove a warning even 
to unreflecting parents," says Dr. Combe. 



254 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 

The reasoning on which this hardening theory 
rests is extremely superficial. Wealthy parents, 
seeing little peasant boys and girls playing about in 
the open air only half-clothed, and joining with this 
fact the general healthiness of laboring people, draw 
the unwarrantable conclusion that the healthiness 
is the result of the exposure, and resolve to keep 
their own offspring scantily covered ! 

It is forgotten that these urchins who gambol 
upon village-greens are in many respects favorably 
circumstanced — that their days are spent in almost 
perpetual play ; that they are always breathing fresh 
air, and that their systems are not disturbed by over- 
taxed brains. For aught that appears to the con- 
trary, their good health may be maintained not in 
consequence of, but in spite of, their deficient cloth- 
ing. This alternative conclusion we believe to be 
the true one, and that an inevitable detriment results 
from the needless loss of animal heat to which they 
are subject. 

For when, the constitution being sound enough 
Exposure at to bear it, exposure does produce hard- 
growth, ness, it does so at the expense of growth. 
This truth is displayed alike in animals and in man. 
The Shetland pony bears greater inclemencies than 
the horses of the south, but is dwarfed. Highland 
sheep and cattle, living in a colder climate, are 
stunted in comparison with English breeds. In 
both the arctic and antarctic regions the human race 



CLOTHING 255 

falls much below its ordinary height : the Laplander 
and Esquimaux are very short, and the Terra del 
Fuegians, who go naked in a cold latitude, are 
described by Darwin as so stunted and hideous, 
that " one can hardly make one's self believe they 
are fellow-creatures." 

Science clearly explains this dwarfishness pro- 
duced by great abstraction of heat, show- Scientific 
ing that, food and other things being equal, ex P loration - 
it unavoidably results. For, as before pointed out, 
to make up for that cooling by radiation which the 
body is constantly undergoing, there must be a con- 
stant oxidation of certain matters which form part 
of the food. And in proportion as the thermal loss 
is great, must the quantity of these matters required 
for oxidation be great. But the power of the diges- 
tive organs is limited. Hence it follows, that when 
they have to prepare a large quantity of this material 
needful for maintaining the temperature, they can 
prepare but a small quantity of the material which 
goes to build up the frame. Excessive expenditure 
for fuel entails diminished means for other purposes : 
wherefore there necessarily results a body small in 
size, or inferior in texture, or both. 

Hence the great importance of clothing. As Lie- 
big says : — " Our clothing is, in reference clothing an 

i p , i -i i equivalent 

to the temperature of the body, merely an for food, 
equivalent for a certain amount of food. " By dimin- 
ishing the loss of heat, it diminishes the amount of 



256 PHYSICAL EDUCATION" 

fuel needful for maintaining the heat, and when the 
stomach has less to do in preparing fuel, it can do 
more in preparing other materials. 

This deduction is entirely confirmed by the experi- 
ence of those who manage animals. Cold can be 
borne by animals only at an expense of fat, or 
muscle, or growth, as the case may be. " If fatten- 
ing cattle are exposed to a low temperature, either 
their progress must be retarded, or a great additional 
expenditure of food incurred." * Mr. Apperley 
insists strongly that to bring hunters into good 
condition it is necessary that the stable should be 
kept warm. And among those who rear racers it 
is an established doctrine that exposure is to be 
avoided. 

The scientific truth thus illustrated by ethnology, 
children an ^ recognized by agriculturalists and 
Redouble sportsmen, applies with double force to 
heat ' children. In proportion to their small- 

ness and the rapidity of their growth is the injury 
from cold great. In France, new-born infants often 
die in winter from being carried to the office of the 
maire for registration. "M. Quetelet has pointed 
out that in Belgium two infants die in January for 
one that dies in July." And in Russia the infant 
mortality is something enormous. Even when near 
maturity the undeveloped frame is comparatively 
unable to bear exposure : as witness the quickness 

* Morton's Cyclopaedia of Agriculture. 



CLOTHING 257 

with which young soldiers succumb in a trying 
campaign. 

The rationale is obvious. We have already ad- 
verted to the fact that in consequence of the varying 
relation between surface and bulk, a child loses a 
relatively larger amount of heat than an adult ; and 
here we must point out that the disadvantage under 
which the child thus labors is very great. Lehmann 
says : — " If the carbonic acid excreted by children 
or young animals is calculated for an equal bodily 
weight, it results that children produce nearly twice 
as much acid as adults." Now the quanity of car- 
bonic acid given off varies with tolerable accuracy 
as the quantity of heat produced. And thus we see 
that in children the system, even when not placed 
at a disadvantage, is called upon to provide nearly 
double the proportion of material for generating heat. 

See, then, the extreme folly of clothing the young 
scantily. What father, full-grown though he is, 
losing heat less rapidly as he does, and having no 
physiological necessity but to supply the waste of 
each day — what father, we ask, would think it salu- 
tary to go about with bare legs, bare arms, and bare 
neck ? Yet this tax upon the system, from which 
he would shrink, he inflicts upon his little ones, who 
are so much less able to bear it ! or, if he does not 
inflict it, sees it inflicted without protest. Let him 
remember that every ounce of nutriment needlessly 
expended for the maintenance of temperature, is so 



258 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 

much deducted from the nutriment going to build 
up the frame and maintain the energies, and that 
even when colds, congestions, or other consequent 
disorders are escaped, diminished growth or less 
perfect structure is inevitable. 

" The rule is, therefore, not to dress in an invari- 

No abiding able Way in all Cases, but t6 put On cloth- 
sensation .. _ . „ , T 
of cold. ingmkmd and quantity sufficient m the 

individual case to protect the body effectually from an 
abiding sensation of cold however slight." This rule, 
the importance of which Dr. Combe indicates by the 
italics, is one in which men of science and practi- 
tioners agree. We have met with none competent 
to form a judgment on the matter, who do not 
strongly condemn the exposure of children's limbs. 
If there is one point above others in which " pesti- 
lent custom " should be ignored, it is this. 

Lamentable, indeed, is it to see mothers seriously 
clothing too damaging the constitutions of their child- 
rough usage, ren out of compliance with an irrational 
fashion. It is bad enough that they should them- 
selves conform to every folly which our Gallic neigh- 
bors please to initiate, but that they should clothe 
their children in any mountebank dress which Le 
petit Courrier des Dames indicates, regardless of its 
insufficiency and unfitness, is monstrous. Discom- 
fort, more or less great, is inflicted ; frequent dis- 
orders are entailed ; growth is checked or stamina 
undermined ; premature death not uncommonly 



CLOTHING 2'59 

caused ; and all because it is thought needful to 
make frocks of a size and material dictated by 
French caprice. 

Not only is it that for the sake of conformity, 
mothers thus punish and injure their little ones by 
scantiness of covering ; but it is that from an allied 
motive they impose a style of dress which forbids 
healthful activity. To please the eye, colors and 
fabrics are chosen totally unfit to bear that rough 
usage which unrestrained play involves, and then 
to prevent damage the unrestrained play is inter- 
dicted. " Get up this moment : you will soil your 
clean frock," is the mandate issued to some urchin 
creeping about on the floor. " Come back : you 
will dirty your stockings," calls out the governess 
to one of her charges, who has left the footpath to 
scramble up a bank. 

Thus is the evil doubled. That they may come 
up to their mamma's standard of prettiness, and be 
admired by her visitors, children must have habili- 
ments deficient in quantity and unfit in texture ; 
and that these easily-damaged habiliments may be 
kept clean and uninjured, the restless activity, so 
natural and needful for the young, is more or less 
restrained. The exercise which becomes doubly 
requisite when the clothing is insufficient, is cut 
short, lest it should deface the clothing. 

Would that the terrible cruelty of this system 
could be seen by those who maintain it. We do 



260 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 

not hesitate to say that, through enfeebled health, 
defective energies, and consequent non-success in 
life, thousands are annually doomed to unhappiness 
by this unscrupulous regard for appearances ; even 
when they are not, by early death, literally sacrificed 
to the Moloch of maternal vanity. We are reluc- 
tant to counsel strong measures, but really the evils 
are so great as to justify, or even to demand, a 
peremptory interference on the part of fathers. 

Our conclusions are, then — that, while the cloth- 
warm, ing of children should never be in such 

strong.' excess as to create oppressive warmth, it 
should always be sufficient to prevent any general 
feeling of cold ; * that, instead of the flimsy cotton, 
linen, or mixed fabrics commonly used, it should be 
made of some good non-conductor, such as coarse 
woolen cloth ; that it should be so strong as to recieve 
little damage from the hard wear and tear which 
childish sports will give it, and that its colors should 
be such as will not soon suffer from use and exposure. 

To the importance of bodily exercise most people 
Exercise for are in some degree awake. Perhaps less 
boys. needs saying on this requisite of physical 

education than on most others : at any rate, in so far 

* It is needful to remark that children whose legs and arms have been 
from the beginning habitually without covering, cease to be conscious that 
the exposed surfaces are cold : just as by use we have all ceased to be con- 
scious that our faces are cold, even when out of doors. But though in such 
children the sensations no longer protest, it does not follow that the system 
escapes injury, any more than it follows that the Fuegian is undamaged by 
exposure, because he bears with indifference the melting of the falling snow 
on his naked body. 



EXKRCISE 261 

as boys are concerned. Public schools and private 
schools alike furnish tolerably adequate play-grounds, 
and there is usually a fair share of time for out-of- 
door games, and a recognition of them as needful. 
In this, if in no other direction, it seems admitted 
that the natural promptings of boyish instinct may 
advantageously be followed, and, indeed, in the 
modern practice of breaking the prolonged morning 
and afternoon's lessons by a few minutes' open-air 
recreation, we sec an increasing tendency to conform 
school regulations to the bodily sensations of the 
pupils. Here, then, little needs to be said in the way 
of expostulation or suggestion. 

But Ave have been obliged to qualify this admis- 
sion by inserting the clause "in so far as Nonefor 
boys are concerned ". Unfortunately, the gllls " 
fact is quite otherwise in the case of girls. It 
chances, somewhat strangely, that we have daily 
opportunity of drawing a comparison. A^£_Jiave 
both a boy's and a girl's school within view, and the 
contrast between them is remarkable. 

In the one case, nearly the whole of a large gar- 
den is turned into an open, gravelled space, afford- 
ing ample scope for games, and supplied with 
poles and horizontal bars for gymnastic exercises. 
Every day before breakfast, again towards eleven 
o'clock, again at mid-day, again in the afternoon, 
and once more after school is over, the neighbor- 
hood is awakened by a chorus of shouts and laugh- 



262 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 

ter as the boys rush out to play ; and for as long as 
they remain, both eyes and ears give proof that they 
are absorbed in that enjoyable activity which makes 
the pulse bound and ensures the healthful activity 
of every organ. 

How unlike is the picture offered by the " Estab- 
lishment for Young Ladies " ! Until the fact was 
pointed out, we actually did not know that we had 
a girls' school as close to us as the school for boys. 
The garden, equally large with the other, affords no 
sign whatever of any provision for juvenile recrea- 
tion, but is entirely laid out with prim grass-plots, 
gravel-walks, shrubs and flowers, after the usual 
suburban style. During five months we have not 
once had our attention drawn to the premises by a 
shout or a laugh. Occasionally girls may be ob- 
served sauntering along the paths with their lesson- 
books in their hands, or else walking arm-in-arm. 
Once, indeed, we saw one chase another round the 
garden, but with this exception, nothing like vigor- 
ous exertion has been visible. 

Why this astonishing difference ? Is it that the 
Delicate constitution of a girl differs so entirely 

women not p . .. 

attractive. from that of a boy as not to need these 
active exercises? Is it that a girl has none of the 
promptings to vociferous play by which boys are 
impelled ? Or is it that, while in boys these prompt- 
ings are to be regarded as securing that bodily 
activity without which there cannot be adequate 



EXERCISE 263 

development, to their sisters nature has given them 
for no purpose whatever — unless it be for the vexa- 
tion of schoolmistresses ? 

Perhaps, however, we mistake the aim of those 
who train the gentler sex. We have a vague sus- 
picion that to produce a robust physique is thought 
undesirable ; that rude health and abundant vigor 
are considered somewhat plebeian; that a certain 
delicacy, a strength not competent to more than a 
mile or two's walk, an appetite fastidious and easily 
satisfied, joined with that timidity which commonly 
accompanies feebleness, are "held more lady-like. 
AVe do not expect that any would distinctly avow 
this, but we fancy the governess-mind is haunted by 
an ideal young lady bearing not a little resemblance 
to this type. If so, it must be admitted that the 
established system is admirably calculated to realize 
this ideal. 

But to suppose that such is the ideal of the oppo- 
site sex is a profound mistake. That men are not com- 
monly drawn towards masculine women, is doubt- 
less true. That such relative weakness as calls for 
the protection of superior strength is an element of 
attraction we quite admit. But the difference to 
which the feelings thus respond is the natural, pre- 
established difference which will assert itself without 
artificial appliances. And when, by artificial appli- 
ances, the degree of this difference is increased, it be- 
comes an element of repulsion rather than attraction. 



264 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 

" Then girls should be allowed to run wild — to 
No danger of become as rude as bovs, and grow up into 

boisterous " 

character. romps and hoydens ! exclaims some 
defender of the proprieties. This, we presume, is the 
ever-present dread of schoolmistresses. It appears, 
on inquiry, that at " Establishments for Young 
Ladies " noisy play like that daily indulged in by 
boys, is a punishable offence, and it is to be inferred 
that this noisy play is forbidden, lest unlady-like 
habits should be formed. 

The fear is quite groundless, however. For if the 
sportive activity allowed to boys does not prevent 
them from growing up into gentlemen, why should 
a like sportive activity allowed to girls prevent them 
from growing up into ladies ? Rough as may have 
been their accustomed play-ground frolics, youths 
who have left school do not indulge in leapfrog in 
the street, or marbles in the drawing-room. Aban- 
doning their jackets, they abandon at the same time 
boyish games, and display an anxiety — often a 
ludicrous anxiety — to avoid whatever is not manly. 

If now, on arriving at the due age, this feeling of 
masculine dignity puts so efficient a restraint on the 
romping sports of boyhood, will not the feeling of 
feminine modesty, gradually strengthening as ma- 
turity is approached, put an efficient restraint on the 
like sports of girlhood ? Have not women even a 
greater regard for appearances than men ? and will 
there not consequently arise in them even a stronger 



EXERCISE 265 

check to whatever is rough or boisterous? I low- 
absurd is the supposition that the womanly instincts 
would uot assert themselves but for the rigorous 
discipline of schoolmistresses ! 

Iu this, as in other eases, to remedy the evils of 
one artificiality, another artificiality has 6ymnastica 
been introduced. The natural spontane- iutulc, i uule - 
ous exercise having been forbidden, and the bad 
consequences of no exercise having become con- 
spicuous, there has been adopted a system of facti- 
tious exercise — gymnastics. That this is better than 
nothing we admit, but that it is an adequate substi- 
tute for play we deny. 

The defects are both positive and negative. In 
the first place, these formal, muscular motions, neces- 
sarily much less v aried than those accompanying 
juvenile sports, do not secure so equable a distribu- 
tion of action to all parts of the body ; whence it 
results that the exertion, falling on special parts, 
produces fatigue sooner than it would else have 
done : add to which, that, if constantly repeated, 
this exertion of special parts leads to a disproportion- 
ate development. 

Again, the quantity of exercise thus taken will be 
deficient riot only in consequence of uneven distri- 
bution, but it will be further deficient in consequence 
of lack of interest. Even when not made repulsive, 
as they sometimes are, by assuming the shape of 
appointed lessons, these monotonous movements^ are 



266 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 

sure to become wearisome, from the absence of amuse- 
ment. Competition, it is true, serves as a stimulus, 
but it is not a lasting stimulus, like that enjoyment 
which accompanies varied play. 

Not only, however, are gymnastics inferior in 
respect of tile quantity of muscular exertion which 
they secure ; they are still more inferior in respect 
of the quality. This comparative want of enjoyment 
to which we have just referred as a cause of early 
desistance from artificial exercises, is also a cause of 
inferiority in the effects they produce on the system. 
The common assumption that so long as the amount 
of bodily action is the same, it matters not whether 
it be pleasurable or otherwise, is a grave mistake. 
An agreeable mental excitement has a highly invig- 
orating influence. See the effect produced upon an 
invalid by good news, or by the visit of an old friend. 
Mark how careful medical men are to recommend 
lively society to debilitated patients. Remember- 
how beneficial to the health is the gratification pro- 
duced by change of scene. 

The truth is that happiness is the most powerful 
Happiness °f tonics. By accelerating the circulation 
atomc. f fas blood, it facilitates the performance 

of every function, and so tends alike to increase 
health when it exists, and to restore it when it has 
been lost. Hence the essential superiority of play 
to gymnastics. The extreme interest felt by children 
in their games, and the riotous glee with which they 



EXERCISE 267 

carry on their rougher frolics, are of as much impor- 
tance as the accompanying exertion. And as not 
supplying these mental stimuli, gymnastics must he 
fundamentally defective. 

Granting then, as we do, that formal exercises of 
the limhs are better than nothing — granting, further, 
that they may be used with advantage as supple- 
mentary aids — we yet contend that such formal 
exercises can never supply the place of the exercises 
prompted by nature. For girls, as well as boys, the 
sportive activities to which the instincts impel, are 
essential to bodily welfare. Whoever forbids them, 
forbids the divinely-appointed means to physical 
development. 

A topic remains — one perhaps more urgently 
demanding consideration than any of the Modern 
foregoing. It is asserted by not a few, inferiority. 
that among the educated classes the younger adults 
and those who are verging upon maturity are, on 
the average, neither so well grown nor so strong 
as their seniors. 

When first we heard this assertion we were in- 
clined to disregard it as one of the many manifes- 
tations of the old tendency to exalt the past at the 
expense of the present. Calling to mind the facts 
that, as measured by ancient armor, modern men 
are proved to be larger than ancient men, and that 
the tables of mortality show no diminution, but 
rather an increase in the duration of life, we paid 



268 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 

litttle attention to what seemed a groundless belief. 
Detailed observation, however, has greatly shaken 
'our opinion. Omitting from the comparison the 
laboring classes, we have noticed a majority of cases 
in which the children do not reach the stature of 
their parents, and, in massiveness, making . due 
allowance for difference of age, there seems a like 
inferiority. 

In health, the contrast appears still greater. Men 
of past generations, living riotously as they did, 
could bear much more than men of the present gen- 
eration, who live soberly, can bear. Though they 
drank hard, kept irregular hours, were regardless of 
fresh air, and thought little of cleanliness, our recent 
ancestors were capable of prolonged application 
without injury, even to ripe old age : witness the 
annals of the bench and the bar. 

Yet we who think much about our bodily welfare ; 
who eat with moderation, and do not drink to excess ; 
who attend to ventilation, and use frequent ablutions ; 
who make annual excursions, and have the benefit 
of greater medical knowledge ; — we are continually 
breaking down under our work. Paying consider- 
able attention to the laws of health, we seem to be 
weaker than our grandfathers who, in many re- 
spects, defied the laws of health. And, judging 
from the appearance and frequent ailments of the 
rising generation, they are likely to be even less 
robust than ourselves. 



MENTAI STRAIN 2G9 

What is the meaning of this? Is it that past 
over-feeding, alike of adults and juveniles, 
was less injurious than the under-feeding 
to which we have adverted as now so general ? Is it 
that the deficient clothing which this delusive hard- 
ening theory has encouraged, is to blame ? Is it that 
the greater or less discouragement of juvenile sports, 
in deference to a false refinement, is the cause? 
From our reasonings it may he inferred that each of 
these has probably had a share in producing the 
evil. But there has been yet another detrimental 
influence at work, perhaps more potent than any of 
the others : we mean — excess of mental application. 

On old and young, the pressure of modern life 
puts a still-increasing strain. In all busi- Mental 
ness and professions, intenser competition strain - 
taxes the energies and abilities of every adult, and, 
with the view of better fitting the young to hold 
their place under this intenser competition, they are 
subject to a more severe discipline than heretofore. 
The damage is thus doubled. Fathers, who find 
not only that they are run hard by their multiply- 
ing competitors, but that, while laboring under this 
disadvantage, they have to maintain a more expen- 
sive style of living, are all the year round obliged to 
work early and late, taking little exercise and getting 
but short holidays. The constitutions, shaken by 
this long-continued over-application, they bequeath 
to their children. And then these comparatively 



270 PHYSICAL EDUCATION" 

feeble children, predisposed as they are to break 
down even under an ordinary strain upon their 
energies, are required io go through a curriculum 
much more extended than that prescribed for the 
unenfeebled children of past generations. 

That disastrous consequences must result from 
this cumulative transgression might be 
predicted with certainty ; and that they 
do result, every observant person knows. Go where 
you will, and before long there come under your 
notice cases of children, or youths, of either sex, 
more or less injured by undue study. Here, to 
recover from a state of debility thus produced, a 
year's rustication has been found necessary. There 
you find a chronic congestion of the brain, that has 
already lasted many months and threatens to last 
much longer. Now you hear of a fever that resulted 
from the over-excitement in some way brought on at 
school. And, again, the instance is that of a youth 
who has already had once to desist from his studies, 
and who, since he has returned to them, is frequently 
taken out of his class in a fainting: fit. 

We state facts — facts that have not been sought 
for, but have been thrust upon our observation dur- 
ing the last two years : and that, too, within a very 
limited range. Nor have we by any means ex- 
hausted the list. Quite recently we had the oppor- 
tunity of marking how the evil becomes hereditary : 
the case being that of a lady of robust parentage, 



MENTAL STRAIN" 27.1 

whose system was so injured by the regime of a 
Seotcli hoarding-school, where she was under-fed 
and over-worked, that she invariably suffers from 
vertigo on rising in the morning, and whose children, 
inheriting this enfeebled brain, are several of them 
unable to bear even a moderate amount of study 
without headache or giddiness. 

At the present time we have daily under our eyes, 
a young lady whose system has been damaged for 
life by the college course through which she has 
passed. Taxed as she was to such an extent that 
she had no energy left for exercise, she is, now that 
she has finished her education, a constant com- 
plainant. Appetite small and very capricious, mostly 
refusing meat ; extremities perpetually cold, even 
when the weather is warm ; a feebleness which 
forbids anything but the slowest walking, and that 
only for a short time ; palpitation on going up stairs ; 
greatly impaired vision — these, joined with checked 
growth and lax tissue, are among the results entailed. 
And to her case we may add that of her friend and 
fellow-student who is similarly weak ; who is liable 
to faint even under the excitement of a quiet party 
of friends, and who has at length been obliged by 
her medical attendant to desist from study entirely. 

If injuries so conspicuous are thus frequent, how 
very general must be the smaller and inconspicu- 
ous injuries. To one case where positive illness is 
directly traceable to over-application, there are 



272 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 

probably at least half-a-dozen cases where the evil 
is unobtrusive and slowly accumulating — cases where 
there is frequent derangement of the functions, attrib- 
uted to this or that special cause, or to constitutional 
delicacy ; cases where there is retardation and pre- 
mature arrest of bodily growth ; cases where a latent 
tendency to consumption is brought out and estab- 
lished ; cases where a predisposition is given to that 
now common cerebral disorder brought on by the hard 
work of adult life. How commonly constitutions 
are thus undermined will be clear to all who, after 
noting the frequent ailments of hard-worked profes- 
sional and mercantile men, will reflect on the dis- 
astrous effects winch undue application must produce 
upon the undeveloped systems of the young. The 
young are competent to bear neither as much hard- 
ship, nor as much physical exertion, nor as much 
mental exertion, as the full grown. Judge, then, if 
the full grown so manifestly suffer from the excessive 
mental exertion required of them, how great must 
be the damage which a mental exertion often equally 
excessive, inflicts upon the young ! 

Indeed, when we examine the merciless school- 
in a ^lis' ( ^ r ^ *° which main- children are subjected, 
school. |] ie WOU( ] er j S) llo i that it does great injury, 

but that it can be borne at all. Take the instance 
given by Sir John Forbes from personal knowledge, 
and which he asserts, after much inquiry, to be an 
average sample of the middle-class girls'-school sys- 



MENTAL STRAIN 273 

tern throughout England. Omitting the detailed 

divisions of time, we quote the summary of the 

twenty-four hours. 

In bed 9 hours (the j T ounger 10) 

In school, at their studies and 

tasks 9 " 

In school, or in the house, the older 

at optional studies or the work, 

younger at play 3} " (the younger 2J) 

At meals H " 

Exercise in the open air, in the 

shape of a formal walk, often 

with lesson-books in hand, and 

even this only when the weather 

is line at the appointed time 1 " 

24 

And what are the results of this " astounding 
regimen", as Sir John Forbes terms it? Of course 
feebleness, pallor, want of spirits, general ill-health. 
But he describes something more. This utter dis- 
regard of physical welfare, out of extreme anxiety 
to cultivate the mind — this prolonged exercise of the 
brain and deficient exercise of the limbs, — he found 
to he habitually followed, not only by disordered 
functions but by malformation. He says: — "AVe 
lately visited, in a large town, a hoarding-school con- 
taining forty girls, and we learnt, on close and accu- 
rate inquiry, that there was not one of the girls who 
had been at the school two years (and the majority 
had been as long) that was not more or less crooked ! "* 

♦Cyclopaedia of Practical Medicine, vol. i. pp. GOT, 0%. 



274 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 

It may be that since 1833, when this was written, 
in a normal some improvement has taken place. We 

school. hope it hag But thai the system j s still 

common — nay, that it is in some cases carried even 
to a greater extreme than ever — we can personally 
testify. A\ 7 e recently went over a training college 
for young men ; one of those instituted of late years 
for the purpose of supplying schools with well-disci- 
plined teachers. Here, under official supervision, 
where something better than the judgment of private 
schoolmistresses might have been looked for, we 
found the daily routine to be as follows : — 

At 6 o'clock the students are called 
" 7 to 8 studies, 

" 8 to 9 scripture reading, prayers and breakfast, 
" 9 to 12 studies, 
" 12 to 1£ leisure, nominally devoted to walking or other 

exercise, but often spent in study, 
" 1£ to 2 dinner, the meal commonly occupying twenty 

minutes, 
" 2 to 5 studies, 
" 5 to 6 tea and relaxation, 
" 6 to 8 J- studies, 
" 8£ to 9£ private studies in preparing lessons for the next 

day, 
" 10 to bed. 

Thus, out of twenty-four hours, eight are devoted 
to sleep ; four and a quarter are occupied in dres- 
sing, prayers, meals, and the brief periods of rest 
accompanying them ; ten and a half are given to 
study, and one and a quarter to exercise, which is 
optional and often avoided. 



MENTAL STRAIN' 1 1 

Not only, however, is it that the ten and a half 
hours of recognized study are frequently increased 
to eleven and a half by devoting to books the time 
set apart for exercise, but some of the students who 
are not quick in learning, get up at four o'clock in 
the morning to prepare their lessons, and are actually 
encouraged by their teachers to do this ! The course 
to be passed through in a given time is so extensive ; 
the teachers, whose credit is at stake in getting their 
pupils well through the examinations, are so urgent, 
and the difficulty of satisfying the requirements is 
so great, that pupils are not uncommonly induced 
to spend twelve and thirteen hours a day in mental 
labor ! 

It needs no prophet to see that the bodily injury 
inflicted must be great. As we were told by one of 
the inmates, those who arrive with fresh complexions 
quickly become blanched. Illness is frequent : there 
are always some on the sick list. Failure of appetite 
and indigestion are very common. Diarrhoea is a 
prevalent disorder ; not uncommonly a third of the 
whole number of students suffering under it at the 
same time. Headache is generally complained of 
and by some is borne almost daily for months, while a 
certain percentage break down entirely and go away. 

That this should be the regimen of what is in 
some sort a model institution, established and super- 
intended by the embodied enlightenment of the age, 
is a startling fact. That the severe examinations; 



276 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 

joined with the short period assigned for preparation, 
should practically compel recourse to a system which 
inevitably undermines the health of all who pass 
through it, is proof if not of cruelty, then of woml 
ignorance. 

Doubtless the case is in a great degree exceptional 
— perhaps to be paralleled only in other institutions 
of the same class. But that cases so extreme should 
exist at all, indicates pretty clearly how great is the 
extent to which the minds of the rising generation 
are overtaxed. Expressing as they do the ideas of 
the educated community, these training colleges, 
even in the absence of all other evidence, would con- 
clusively imply a prevailing tendency to an nndnlv 
urgent system of culture. 

It seems strange that there should be so little con- 
As dangerous scionsness of the dangers of over-education 
in childhood, during youth, when there is so general a 
consciousness of the dangers of over-edncation during: 
childhood. Most parents are more or less aware of 
the evil consequences that follow infant precocity. 
In every society may be heard reprobation of those 
who too early stimulate the minds of their little ones. 
And the dread of this early stimulation is great in 
proportion as there is adequate knowledge of the 
effects : witness the implied opinion of one of our 
most distinguished professors of physiology, who 
told us that he did not intend his little boy to learn 
any lessons until he was eight years old. 



MENTAL STRAIN 277 

Bat while to all it is a familiar truth that a forced 
development of intelligence in childhood entails dis- 
astrous results — either physical feebleness, or ulti- 
mate stupidity, or early death — it appears not to he 
perceived that throughout youth the same truth 
holds. Yet it is certain that it must do so. There 
is a given order in which, and a given rate at which, 
the faculties unfold. If the course of education con- 
forms itself to that order and rate, well. If not — if 
the higher faculties are early taxed by presenting an 
order of knowledge more complex and abstract than 
can be readily assimilated ; or if, by excess of cul- 
ture, the intellect in general is developed to a degree 
beyond that which is natural to the age, the abnor- 
mal result so produced will inevitably be accom- 
panied by some equivalent, or more than equivalent, 
evil. 

Tor Nature is a strict accountant ; and if you 
demand of her in one direction more than Nature's 

• ii -i close ac- 

she is prepared to lay out, she balances count. 
the account by making a deduction elsewhere. If 
you will let her follow her own course, taking care 
to supply, in right quantities and kinds, the raw 
materials of bodily and mental growth required at 
each age, she will eventually produce an individual 
more or less evenly developed. If, however, you 
insist on premature or undue growth of any one 
part, she will, with more or less protest, concede the 
point ; but that she may do your extra work, she 



278 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 

must leave some of her more important work undone. 

Let it never be forgotten that the amount of vital 
energy which the body at any moment possesses is 
limited, and that being limited, it is impossible to 
get from it more than a fixed quantity of results. 
In a child or youth the demands upon this vital 
energy are various and urgent. As before pointed 
out, the waste consequent on the day's bodily exer- 
cise has to be repaired ; the wear of brain entailed 
by the day's study has to be made good ; a certain 
additional growth of body has to be provided for, 
and also a certain additional growth of brain : add 
to which the amount of energy absorbed in the 
digestion of the large quantity of food required for 
meeting these many demands. 

Now, that to divert an excess of energy into any 
one of these channels is to abstract it from the others, 
is not only manifest a priori, but may be shown a 
posteriori from the exj)erience of every one. Every 
one knows, for instance, that the digestion of a heavy 
meal makes such a demand on the system as to 
produce lassitude of mind and body, ending not 
unfrequently in sleep. Every one knows, too, that 
excess of bodily exercise diminishes the power of 
thought — that the temporary prostration following 
any sudden exertion, or the fatigue produced by a 
thirty miles' walk, is accompanied by a disinclination 
to mental effort ; that, after a month's pedestrian tour, 
the mental inertia is such that some days are re- 



MENTAL STRAIN 279 

quired to overcome it : and that in peasants who 
spend their lives in muscular labor the activity of 
mind is very small. 

Again, it is a truth familiar to all that during 
those fits of extreme rapid growth which sometimes 
occur in childhood, the great abstraction of energy 
is shown in the attendant prostration, bodily and 
mental. Once more, the facts that violent muscular 
exertion after eating will stop digestion, and that 
children who are early put to hard labor become 
stunted, similarly exhibit the antagonism — similarly 
imply that excess of activity in one direction involves 
deficiency of it in other directions. 

Now the law which is thus manifest in extreme 
cases holds in all cases. These injurious abstractions 
of energy as certainly take place when the undue 
demands are slight and constant, as when they are 
great and sudden. Hence, if in youth, the expendi- 
ture in mental labor exceeds that which nature had 
provided for, the expenditure for other purposes tails 
below what it should have been, and evils of one 
kind or other are inevitably entailed. Let us briefly 
consider these evils. 

Supposing the over-activity of brain not to be 
extreme, but to exceed the normal activity Effectsof 
only in a moderate degree, there will be S^hfon 
nothing more than some slight reaction srowtb - 
on the development of the body ; the stature falling 
a little below that which it would else have reached ; 



280 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 

or the bulk being less than it would have been ; or 
the quality of tissue being not so good. One or 
more of these effects must necessarily occur. The 
extra quantity of blood supplied to the brain, not 
only during the period of mental exertion, but dur- 
ing the subsequent period in which the waste of 
cerebral substance is being made good, is blood that 
would else have been circulating through the limbs 
and viscera, and the amount of growth or. repair for 
which that blood would have supplied materials, is 
lost. This physical reaction being certain, the ques- 
tion is, whether the gain resulting from the extra 
culture is equivalent to the loss? — whether defect of 
bodily growth, or the want of that structural per- 
fection which gives high vigor and endurance, is 
compensated for by the additional knowledge gained ? 
When the excess of mental exertion is greater, 
on the there follow results far more serious ; tell- 

brain. j U g no ^ on iy against bodily perfection, but 

against the perfection of the brain itself. It is a 
physiological law, first pointed out by M. Isidore St. 
Hilaire, and to which attention has been drawn by 
Mr. Lewes in his essay on Dwarfs and Giants, that 
there is an antagonism between growth and develop- 
ment. By growth, as used in this antithetical sense, 
is to be understood increase of size ; by development, 
increase of structure. And the law is, that great 
activity in either of these processes involves retarda- 
tion or arrest of the other. 



MENTAL STRAIN 281 

xx familiar illustration is furnished by the cases 
of the caterpillar and the chrysalis. In the cater- 
pillar there is extremely rapid augmentation of bulk ; 
but the structure is scarcely at all more complex 
when the caterpillar is full-grown than when it is 
small. In the chrysalis the bulk does not increase ; 
on the contrary, weight is lost during this stage of 
the creature's life, but the elaboration of a more 
complex structure goes on with great activity. 

The antagonism, here so clear, is less traceable in 
higher creatures, because the two processes are car- 
ried on together. But we see it pretty well illus- 
trated among ourselves by contrasting the sexes. A 
girl develops in body and mind rapidly, and ceases 
to grow comparatively early. A boy's bodily and 
mental development is slower, and his growth 
greater. At the age when the one is mature, finish- 
ed, and having all faculties in full play, the other, 
whose vital energies have been more directed towards 
increase of size, is relatively incomplete in structure, 
and shows it in a comparative awkwardness, bodily 
and mental. 

Now this law is true not only of the organism as 
a whole, but of each separate part. The abnormally 
rapid advance of any part in respect of structure 
involves premature arrest of its growth, and this 
happens with the organ of the mind as certainly as 
with any other organ. The brain, which during 
early years is relatively large in mass but imperfect 



282 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 

in structure, will, if required to perform its functions 
with undue activity, undergo a structural advance 
greater than is appropriate to the age ; but the ulti- 
mate effect will be a falling short of the size and 
power that would else have been attained. And 
this is a part cause — probably the chief cause — why 
precocious children, and youths who up to a certain 
time were carrying all before them, so often stop 
short and disappoint the high hopes of their parents. 
But these results of over-education, disastrous as 
they are, are perhaps less disastrous than 

On health. , L \ 

the results produced upon the health — 
the undermined constitution, the enfeebled energies, 
the morbid feelings. Recent discoveries in physi- 
ology have shown how immense is the influence of 
the brain over the functions of the body. The 
digestion of the food, the circulation of the blood, 
and through these all other organic processes, are 
profoundly affected by cerebral excitement. 

Whoever has seen repeated, as we have, the ex- 
periment first performed by Weber, showing the 
consequence of irritating the vagus nerve which con- 
nects the brain with the viscera — whoever has seen 
the action of the heart suddenly arrested by the irri- 
tation of the nerve ; slowly recommencing when the 
irritation is suspended, and again arrested the 
moment it is renewed — will have a vivid conception 
of the depressing influence which an over-wrought 
brain exercises on the body. 



MENTAL STRAIN 283 

The effects thus physiologically explained, are 
indeed exemplified in ordinary experience. There 
is no one but has felt the palpitation accompanying 
hope, fear, anger, joy — no one but has observed how 
labored becomes the action of the heart when these 
feelings arc very violent. And though there are 
many who have never themselves suffered that ex- 
treme emotional excitement which is followed by 
arrest of the heart's action and fainting, yet every 
one knows them to be cause and effect. 

It is a familiar fact, too, that disturbance of the 
stomach is entailed by mental excitement exceeding 
a certain intensity. Loss of appetite is a common 
result alike of very pleasurable and very painful 
states of mind. When the event producing a pleas- 
urable or painful state of mind occurs shortly after 
a meal, it not unfrequently happens either that the 
stomach rejects what has been eaten, or digests it 
with great difficulty and under prolonged protest. 
And as every one who taxes his brain much can 
testify, even purely intellectual action will, when 
excessive, produce analogous effects. 

Now the relation between brain and body which 
is so manifest in these extreme cases, holds equally 
in ordinary, less-marked cases. Just as these violent 
but temporary cerebral excitements produce violent 
but temporary disturbances of the viscera, so do the 
less violent but chronic cerebral excitements, produce 
less violent but chronic visceral disturbances. This 



284 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 

is not simply an inference — it is a truth to which 
every medical man can bear witness ; and it is one 
to which a long and sad experience enables us to 
give personal testimony. 

Various degrees and forms of bodily derangement, 
often taking years of enforced idleness to set partially 
right, result from this prolonged over-exertion of 
mind. Sometimes the heart is chiefly affected : 
habitual palpitations ; a pulse much enfeebled ; and 
very generally a diminution in the number of beats 
from seventy-two to sixty, or even fewer. Some- 
times the conspicuous disorder is of the stomach : a 
dyspepsia which makes life a burden, ancl is amen- 
able to no remedy but time. In many cases both 
heart and stomach are implicated. Mostly the sleep 
is short and broken. And very generally there is 
more or less mental depression. 

Consider, then, how great must be the damage 
inflicted by undue mental excitement on 
children and youths. More or less of this 
constitutional disturbance will inevitably follow an 
exertion of brain beyond that which nature had 
provided for, and when not so excessive as to pro- 
duce absolute illness, is sure to entail a slowly accu- 
mulating degeneracy of physique. With a small and 
fastidious appetite, an imperfect digestion, and an 
enfeebled circulation, how can the developing body 
nourish ? The due performance of every vital pro- 
cess depends on the adequate supply of good blood . 



MENTAL STRAIN 285 

Without enough good blood, no gland can secrete 
properly, no viscus can fully discharge its office. 
Without enough good blood, no nerve, muscle, mem- 
brane, or other tissue can be efficiently repaired. 
Without enough good blood, growth will neither be 
sound nor sufficient. Judge, then, how bad must 
be the consequences when to a growing body the 
weakened stomach supplies blood that is deficient in 
quantity and poor in quality, while the debilitated 
heart propels this poor and scanty blood with un- 
natural slowness. 

And if, as all who candidly investigate the matter 
must admit, physical degeneracy is a con- Craniminff 
sequence of excessive study, how grave is a mistake - 
the condemnation to be passed upon this cramming 
system above exemplified. It is a terrible mistake, 
from whatever point of view regarded. 

It is a mistake in so far as the mere acquirement 
of knowledge is concerned : for it is noto- Kn< j w iedee 
rious that the mind, like the body, cannot ™*«*V*«*- 
assimilate beyond a certain rate, and if you ply it 
with facts faster than it can assimilate them, they 
are very soon rejected again : they do not become 
permanently built into the intellectual fabric, but 
fall out of recollection after the passing of the exam- 
ination for which they were got up. 

It is a mistake, too, because it tends to make 
study distasteful. Either through the stl i<iy(iis- 
painful associations produced' by careless tasteful - 
mental toil, or through the abnormal state of brain 



286 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 

it leaves behind, it often generates an aversion to 
books, and, instead of that subsequent self-culture 
induced by a rational education, there comes a con- 
tinued retrogression. 

It is a mistake, also, inasmuch as it assumes that 
Thought the acquisition of knowledge is everything, 
hampered. an( j f or g e t s that a mU ch more important 
matter is the organization of knowledge, for which 
time and spontaneous thinking are requisite. Just 
as Humboldt remarks respecting the progress of 
intelligence in general, that "the interpretation of 
nature is obscured when the description languishes 
under too great an accumulation of insulated facts ; " 
so it may be remarked, respecting the progress of 
individual intelligence, that the mind is overbur- 
dened and hampered by an excess of ill-digested 
information. It is not the knowledge stored up as 
intellectual fat which is of value, but that which is 
turned into intellectual muscle. 

But the mistake is still deeper. Even were the 
Health system good as a system of intellectual 

injured. training, which it is not, it would still be 
bad, because, as we have shown, it is fatal to that 
vigor of physique which is needful to make intellect- 
ual training available in the struggle of life. Those 
who, in eagerness to cultivate, their pupils' minds, 
are reckless of their bodies, do not remember that 
success in the world depends much more upon 
energy than upon information, and that a policy 



MENTAL STRAIN 287 

which in cramming with information undermines 
energy, is self-defeating. The strong will and un- 
tiring activity which result from abundant animal 
vigor, go far to compensate even for great defects 
of education, and when joined with that quite ade- 
quate education which may be obtained without 
sacrificing health, they ensure an easy victory over 
competitors enfeebled by excessive study, prodigies 
of learning though they may be. A comparatively 
small and ill-made engine, worked at high pressure, 
will do more than a larger and well-finished one 
worked at low-pressure. What folly is it, then, 
while finishing the engine, so to damage the boiler 
that it will not generate steam ! 

Once more, the system is a mistake, as involving 
a false estimate of welfare in life. Even Unhappiness 
supposing it were a means to worldly sue- inev,table - 
cess, instead of a means to worldly failure, yet, in 
the entailed ill-health, it would inflict a more than 
equivalent curse. What boots it to have attained 
wealth, if the wealth is accompanied by ceaseless 
ailments? What is the worth of distinction, if it 
has brought hypochondria with it? Surely none 
needs telling that a good digestion, a bounding pulse, 
and high spirits are elements of happiness which no 
external advantages can outbalance. Chronic bodily 
disorder casts a gloom over the brightest prospects, 
while the vivacity of strong health gilds even mis- 
fortune. 



288 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 

We contend, then, that this over-education is 
vicious in every way — vicious, as giving knowledge 
that will soon be forgotten ; vicious, as producing a 
disgust for knowledge ; vicious, as neglecting that 
organization of knowledge which is more important 
than its acquisition ; vicious, as weakening or de- 
stroying that energy, without which a trained intel- 
lect is useless ; vicious, as entailing that ill-health 
for which even success would not compensate, and 
which makes failure doubly bitter. 

On women the effects of this forcing system are, 
Theattrac- if possible, even more injurious than on 
women. men. Being in great measure debarred 

from those vigorous and enjoyable exercises of body 
by which boys mitigate the evils of excessive study, 
girls feel these evils in their full intensity. Hence, 
the much smaller proportion of them who grow up 
well made and healthy. 

In the pale, angular, flat-chested young ladies, so 
abundant in London drawing-rooms, we see the 
effect of merciless application, unrelieved by youth- 
ful sport : and this physical degeneracy exhibited by 
them, hinders their welfare far more than their 
many accomplishments aid it. Mammas anxious 
to make their daughters attractive, could scarcely 
choose a course more fatal than this, which sacrifices 
the body to the mind. Either they disregard the 
tastes of the opposite sex, or else their conception of 
those tastes is erroneous. Men care comparatively 



MENTAL STRAIN 280 

little for erudition in women, but very much for 
physical beauty, and good-nature, and sound sense. 
How many conquests does the blue stocking make 
through her extensive knowledge of history ? What 
man ever fell in love with a woman because she 
understood Italian ? Where is the Edwin who was 
brought to Angelina's feet by her German ? 

But rosy cheeks and laughing eyes are great at- 
tractions. A finely rounded figure draws admiring 
glances. The liveliness and good humor that over- 
flowing health produces, go a great way towards estab- 
lishing attachments. Every one knows cases where 
bodily perfections, in the absence of all other recom- 
mendations, have incited a passion that carried all 
before it ; but scarcely any one can point to a case 
where mere intellectual acquirements, apart from 
moral or physical attributes, have aroused such a 
feeling. 

The truth is that, out of the many elements unit- 
ing in various proportions to produce in a man's 
breast that complex emotion which we call love, the 
strongest are those produced by physical attractions; 
the next in order of strength are those produced by 
moral attractions ; the weakest are those produced 
by intellectual attractions ; and even those are de- 
pendent much less upon acquired knowledge than 
on natural faculty — quickness, wit, insight. 

If any think the assertion a derogatory one, and 
inveigh against the masculine character for being 



290 PHYSIC 1 AL EDUCATION 

thus swayed, we reply that they little know what 
they say when they thus call in question the Divine 
ordinations. Even were there no obvious meaning 
in the arrangement, we might be sure that some 
important end was subserved. But the meaning is 
quite obvious to those who examine. It needs but 
to remember that one of Nature's ends, or rather her 
supreme end, is the welfare of posterity — it needs 
but to remember that, in so far as posterity are con- 
cerned, a cultivated intelligence based upon a bad 
physique is of little worth, seeing that its descendants 
will die out in a generation or two — it needs but to 
bear in mind that a good, physique, however poor the 
accompanying mental endowments, is worth preserv- 
ing, because throughout future generations, the 
mental endowments may be indefinitely developed 
— it needs but to contemplate these truths, to see 
how important is the balance of instincts above 
described. 

But, purpose apart, the instincts being thus bal- 
anced, it is a fatal folly to persist in a system which 
undermines a girl's constitution that it may overload 
her memory. Educate as highly as possible — the 
higher the better — providing no bodily injury is en- 
tailed (and we may remark, in passing, that a high 
standard might be so reached were the parrot-faculty 
cultivated less, and the human faculty more, and were 
the discipline extended over that now wasted period 
between leaving school and being married.) But to 



MENTAL STRAIN 291 

educate in such a manner, or to such extent, as to 
produce physical degeneracy, is to defeat the chief 
end for which the toil and cost and anxiety are sub- 
mitted to. By subjecting their daughters to this 
high-pressure system, parents frequently ruin their 
prospects in life. Not only do they inflict on them 
enfeebled health, with all its pains and disabilities 
and gloom, but very often they actually doom them 
to celibacy. 

Our general conclusion is, then, that the ordinary 
treatment of children is, in various ways, 
seriously prejudical. It errs in deficient 
feeding ; in deficient clothing ; in deficient exercise 
(among girls at least), and in excessive mental appli- 
cation. Considering the regime as a whole, its ten- 
dency is too exacting ; it asks too much and gives 
too little. In the extent to which it takes the vital 
energies, it makes the juvenile life much more like 
the adult life than it should be. It overlooks the 
truth that, as in the foetus the entire vitality is 
expended in the direction of growth — as in the 
infant, the expenditure of vitality in growth is so 
great as to leave extremely little for either physical 
or mental action — so throughout childhood and 
youth growth is the dominant requirement to which 
all others must be subordinated : a requirement which 
dictates the giving of much and the taking away 
of little — a requirement which, therefore, restricts 
the exertion of body and mind to a degree propor- 



292 PHYSICAL EDUCATION 

tionate to the rapidity of growth — a requirement 
which permits the mental and physical activities to 
increase only as fast as the rate of growth diminishes. 
Regarded from another point of view, this high- 
Education pressure education manifestly results from 

too entirely . „..,.,. T 

mental. our passing phase of civilization. In prim- 

itive times, when aggression and defence were the 
leading social activities, bodily vigor with its accom- 
panying courage were the desiderata, and then 
education was almost wholly physical : mental cul- 
tivation was little cared for, and indeed, as in our 
own feudal ages, was often treated with contempt. 
But now that our state is relatively peaceful — now 
that muscular power is of use for little else than 
manual labor, while social success of nearly every 
kind depends very much on mental power — our 
education has become almost exclusively mental. 
Instead of respecting the body and ignoring the 
mind, we now respect the mind and ignore the body. 
Both these attitudes are wrong. We do not yet 
sufficiently realize the truth that as, in this life of 
ours, the physical underlies the mental, the mental 
must not be developed at the expense of the physi- 
cal. The ancient and modern conceptions must be 
combined. 

Perhaps nothing will so much hasten the time 
Preservation when body and mind will both be ade- 
duty. quately cared for, as a diffusion of the 

belief that the preservation of health is a duty. Few 



MENTAL STRAIN 293 

seem conscious that there is such a thing as physi- 
cal morality. Men's habitual words and acts imply 
the idea that they are at liberty to treat their bodies 
as they please. Disorders entailed by disobedience 
to Nature's dictates, they regard simply as griev- 
ances : not as the effects of a conduct more or less 
flagitious. Though the evil consequences inflicted 
on their dependents, and on future generations, are 
often as great as those caused by crime, yet they do 
not think themselves in any degree criminal. It is 
true, that, in the case of drunkenness, the viciousness 
of a purely bodily transgression is recognized ; but 
none appear to infer that, if this bodily transgres- 
sion is vicious, so too is every bodily transgression. 
The fact is, that all breaches of the laws of health 
are physical sins. When this is generally seen, then, 
and perhaps not till then, will the physical training 
of the young receive all the attention it deserves. 



NOTKS 



Page 21 — Value of knowledge. — An anecdote is told of an Eng- 
lish professor who asked the man rowing across the lake: "Do 
you understand Latin ? " — " No, your honor." — " Then a quarter 
of your life is lost. Do you understand Greek? — "No, your 
honor." — " Then a half of your life is lost. Do you understand 
mathematics ? " — No, your honor." — " Then three-fourths of your 
life is lost." But meantime a sudden squall came up, and the 
boat shipped too much water. " Can your honor swim ? " asked 
the boatman. "No." — "Then all your life is lost, for we are 
going to the bottom." 

Page 23 — Kinds of activity. — On this classification M. Coin- 
payre remarks : 

Mr. Spencer is wrong in patting into the last category of activities that 
.which is the crown of the others, all that which concerns the moral develop- 
ment of the individual. Between the second and the third class of activities 
we ask to interpolate another form of activity,— that which constitutes the 
individual moral life, that which, in every man, even the humblest and the 
poorest, calls into exercise the conscience, the reason, and the will. Mr. 
Spencer's system is decidedly too aristocratic. It seems to reserve the 
moral life for men of leisure. In a democratic society, which believes in 
equality and which would not have this an empty term, there are efforts 
which must be made for the moral development of the human being in all 
conditions, and it would be wrong to reduce personal activity to the care of 
health and material well-being.— History of Pedagogy, pp. 5U3, 5hh. 

Page 34 — Physiology all- essential. — Prof. W. II. Payne says : 
Admitting the inestimable value of physiological knowledge to the 
human race, does it follow that every one should make a study of this 

(295) 



296 

Science as a means of guidance ? The answer is to be found in the fact that 
only the simplest rudiments of this subject, scarcely more than its empirical 
precepts, come within the range of the average pupil's opportunities ; but 
that the real science has been monopolized for professional use by physi- 
cians. The fact in the case is that, with the exception of the parts directly 
connected with hygiene, physiological knowledge is as little available for 
individual guidance as astronomical knowledge. Under normal and usual 
conditions, the human body is a machine that will perform its functions 
without the need of assistance ; and under abnormal conditions, nothing 
but the highest knowledge and skill can be trusted in the way of inter- 
vention. Daily experience shows that in this domain nothing is more 
dangerous than half knowledge, or " a little knowledge ". Every man, 
for his own daily guidance, should know the plain conditions of healthy 
living, with respect to food, air, exercise, etc., and this easy knowledge 
should be communicated to all ; but when a man is sick, or bruised, or 
wounded, he should employ, a physician— he should hire the knowledge and 
skill that his own preoccupations and predilections have forbidden him to 
acquire. In the first case, physiology has a practical value of the direct 
order ; in the second case, it is of indirect or mediate practical value. The 
case just presented is a typical one. For example, all men have need of 
hats ; shall all men therefore, learn the hatter's trade ? By no means. It 
suffices that each man knows enough of hats to judge of their quality when 
he buys, and to take proper care of the one he chances to own. Any 
knowledge beyond this must be relegated to the craft of hatters.— Contribu- 
tions to the Science of Education, pp. 53, 5k. 

Prof. Joseph Payne says in his Lectures : 

The general conclusion, then, from our review of Mr. Spencer's theory is, 
that its due satisfaction involves the assumption that every man is to be his 
own doctor, lawyer, architect, bailiff, tailor, and I suppose,— clergyman. 

* * * Knowledge which may be unquestionably useful to some per- 
sons may not be useful at all to others ; therefore, although education is to 
be a preparation for after life, yet it is to be a general, not a professional, 
preparation, and cannot provide for minute and special contingencies. 
The object of education is to form the man, not the baker -the man, not the 
lawyer— the man, not the civil engineer.— Small's Edition, pp. 2k7, %k9. 

Page 36 — Business dependent on science. — Mr. Quick says : 
Should we teach all sciences to everybody ? This is clearly impossible. 



NOTES 297 

Should we, then, decide for each child what is to be his particular means of 
money-getting, and instruct him in those sciences which will be most useful 
in that business or profession? In other words, should we have a separate 
school for each calling? The only attempt of this kind which has been 
made is, I believe, the institution of Handleschulen, (commercial schools) in 
Germany. In them, youths of fifteen or sixteen enter for a course of two or 
three years' instruction which aims exclusively at fitting them for coin 
merce. But, in this case, their general education is already finished. With 
us, the lad commonly goes to work at the business itself quite as soon as he 
has the faculties for learning the sciences connected with it. If the schools 
send him to it with a love of knowledge, and with a mind well disciplined 
to acquire knowledge, this will be of more value to him than any special 
Information.— Educational Reformers, Syracuse Edition, p. 230. 

Page o7— Disciplinary development. — 11. 11. Quick says of this 
in his Educational Reformers : 

But it seems to me that different subjects must be used to train the facul- 
ties at different stages of development. The processes of science, which 
form the staple of education in Mr. Spencers system, cannot be grasped by 
the intellect of a child. " The scientific discoverer does the work, and when 
it is done the schoolboy is called in to witness the result, to learn its chief 
features by heart, and to repeat them when called upon, just as he is called 
on to name the mothers of the patriarchs, or to give an account of the East- 
ern campaigns of Alexander the Great." (Pall Mall Gazette, Feb. 8, 1867.) 
This, however, affords but scanty training for the mind. We want to draw 
out the child's iuterests, and to direct them to worthy objects. We want 
not only to teach him, but to enable and encourage him to teach himself ; 
and if, following Mr. Spencer's advice, we make him get up the species of 
plants, " which amount to some 320,000," and the varied forms of animal life, 
which are "estimated at some 2,000,000," wc may, as Mr. Spencer tells us, 
have strengthened his memory as effectually as by teaching him languages ; 
but the pupil will, perhaps, have no great reason to rejoice over his escape 
from the horrors of the "As in Praesenti ", and " Propria qua? Maribus". 
The consequences will be the same in both cases. We shall disgust the 
great majority of our scholars with the acquisition of knowledge, and with 
the use of the powers of their minds. Whether, therefore, we adopt or 
reject Mr. Spencer's conclusion, that there is one sort of knowledge which 
is universally the most valuable, I think I must deny that there is one sort 



298 spencer's education 

of knowledge which is universally, and at every stage in education, the best 
adapted to develop the intellectual faculties. Mr. Spencer himself acknowl- 
edges this elsewhere. '* There is," says he, -i a certain sequence in which the 
faculties spontaneously develop, and a certain kind of knowledge, which 
each requires during its development. It is for us to ascertain this sequence, 
and supply this knowledge."— Pp. 225, 226. 

Page 45 — Investments guided by science. — Mr. Quick says : 
As far as money-getting is concerned, then, science will not be found to 
be universally serviceable. Mr. Spencer gives instances, indeed, Avhere 
science would prevent very expensive blundering ; but the true inference is, 
not that the blunderers should learn science, but that they should mind 
their own business, and take the opinion of scientific men about theh-s. 
"Here is a mine," says he, ''in the sinking of which many shareholders 
ruined themselves, from not knowing that a certain fossil belonged to the 
old red sandstone, below which no coal is found." Perhaps they were mis- 
led by the little knowledge which Pope tells us is a dangerous thing. If 
they had been entirely ignorant, they would surely have called in a profes- 
sional geologist, whose opinion would have been more valuable than their 
own, even though geology had taken the place of classics in their schooling. 
" Daily are men induced to aid in carrying out inventions which a mere 
tyro in science could show to be futile." But these are men whose function 
it would always be to lose money, not make it, whatever you might teach 
them.*— Educational Reformers, p. 231. 

Page 58 — History valueless. — Mr. Quick says : 

As it has been often said, the effect of reading history is, in some 
respects the same as that of travelling. Any one in Mr. Spencer's vein 
might ask, " If a man has seen the Alps, of what use will that be to him in 
weighing out groceries ': " Directly none at all ; but indirectly, much. The 
travelled man will not be such a slave to the petty views and customs of his 
trade as the man who looks on his county town as the centre of the uni- 
verse. The study of history, like travelling, widens the student's mental 
vision, frees him, to some extent, from the bondage of the present, and pre- 
vents his mistaking conventionalities for laws of nature. It brings home to 
him, in all its force, the truth that " there are also people beyond the moun- 

* " The brewer." as Mr. Spencer himself tells us, " if his business is very 
extensive, finds it pay to keep a chemist on the premises "—pay a good deal 
better, I suspect, than learning chemistry at school. 



NOTES 299 

tains" (IRnlerdemBerge8ln&auch Leutt i, thai there are higher interests in 
the world than his own business concerns, and nobler men than himself, or 
the best of his acquaintance. It teaches him what men are capable of, and 
thus gives him juster views of his race. And to have all this truth worked 
into the mind contributes, perhaps, as largely to "complete living" as 
kuowledge of the Eustachian tubes, or of the normal rate of pulsation.— 
Educational Reformers, p. SSU. 

Page 66 — Importance of (esthetics. — Mr. Quick says : 
This language is rather obscure ; but the only meaning I can attach to it 
is, that music, drawing, poetry, etc., may be taught if time can be found 
when all other knowledges are provided for. This reminds me of the 
author whose works are so valuable that they will be studied when Shake- 
speare is forgotten— but not before. Any one of the sciences which Mr. 
Spencer considers so necessary might employ a lifetime. "Where, then, 
shall we look for the leisure part of education when education includes 
them all t— Educational Reformers, p. 235. 

Page 69 — ^Esthetics based on science. — M. Compayre remarks : 
That which it is more difficult to grant Mr. Spencer, is that aesthetic edu- 
cation, in its turn, is based on science. Is there not some exaggeration, for 
example, in asserting that poor musical compositions are poor because they 
are lacking in truth ? and that they are lacking in truth " because they are 
lacking in science " ? Does one become a man of letters and an artist as one 
becomes a geometrician ? To cultivate with success those arts which are as 
the flower of civilization, is there not required, besides talent and natural 
sifts, a lon^ practice, a slow initiation, something, in a word, more delicate 
than the attention which suffices for being instructed in science ?— History of 
Pedagogy, p. ol£. 

Page 72 — Mistakes of artists. — Mr. Quick remarks : 
It is difficult to treat seriously the arguments by which Mr. Spencer 
endeavors to show that a knowledge of science is necessary for the practice 
or the enjoyment of the fine arts. Of course, the highest art of every kind 
is based on science, that is, on truths which science takes cognizance of and 
explains ; but it does not therefore follow that " without science there can 
be neither perfect production nor full appreciation." Mr. Spencer tells us 
of mistakes which John Lewis and Rossetti have made for want of science. 
Very likely : and had those gentlemen devoted much of their time to science 




300 spencer's education 

we should never have heard of their blunders— or of their pictures either.— 
Educational Reformers, pp. 235, 230. 

Page 77— Hugh Miller (Scotch, 1802-1856), was among the 

most remarkable of self-taught 
men of genius. At 13 he was 
an incorrigible truant, and the 
schoolmaster thought he would 
grow up a dunce. But he had a 
great fancy for authorship, and 
became a stone-mason that he 
might have the unemployed win- 
ter time for literary composition. 
Under the discipline of labor, the refractory schoolbo} r became a 
sober-minded man. After his marriage he got employment in a 
bank, but after a pamphlet-letter to Lord Brougham in 1839 had 
made him famous, he became an editor of The Witness, of Edin- 
burgh, which position he held until his death, which occurred 
from a pistol-shot from his own hand, while crazed from over- 
work. His autobiographical "My Schools and Schoolmasters" 
ranks among the masterpieces of its kind in English literature, 
but he is best known for his contributions to geology. 

Page 80 — The beautiful economy of Nature. — Prof. W. H, 
Payne says : 

The whole school of educational writers of which Mr. Spencer is the 
representative are accustomed to resort to the myth "Nature ", whenever 
their favorite theses cannot be supported by legitimate argument. The 
existing order of things is personified under the term "Nature ", and then 
this " Nature " is assumed to be a sort of goddess who administers all the 
affairs of terrestrial existence with incomparable accuracy and wisdom : 
and then the validity of any assumption is established by showing that it 
conforms to a so-called " Order of Nature ". In the case under considera- 
tion the authority of " Nature " is quoted as a sufficient ground for a very 
lai'ge assumption— " the beautiful economy of Nature " constrains us to 



NOTES 301 

believe that studies that are most valuable for use are also the most valu- 
able for discipline. 

Naville, in his " Logique de I'Hypothdse ", finely ridicules the easy resort 
to authority as follows: '"Aristotle teaches that the sun is incorruptible. 
At the time when the discovery of spots on the sun began to circulate, a 
student called the attention of his old professor to the matter, and received 
the following reply : ' My friend, I have read Aristotle twice from begin- 
ning to end, and 1 know there can be no spots on the sun. Wipe your 
lenses better. If the spots are not in your telescope, they must be in your 
eyes ! ' " Is it any more absurd to quote the dictum of Aristotle in ques- 
tions of physical science than an assumed " Order of Nature '* in questions 
of educational science ? It. may fairly be counted a standing wonder that a 
philosopher of this day still adheres to a mode of philosophizing that has 
long since been abandoned by all reputable scientists. It is only in educa- 
tional science that the mediaeval logic is still in full force. 

" The beautiful economy of Nature ! " that were finely said by a satirist. 
To succeed in raising one plant from the sowing of a thousand seeds ; to 
choke the growth of a wholesome plant by a wilderness of noxious weeds ; 
to abandon a crop of promising fruit. to a horde^of ravenous bugs ; to carry 
off a score of robust children by infection from insidious disease-germs— 
such is " the beautiful economy of Nature " !- Contributions,])}). US, hk. See 
aim pp. 1W-15G. 

Prof. Joseph Payne in his Lectures points out six reasons why 
Nature's teaching is not to be implicitly followed. 

1. Nature's teaching '^desultory. She mingles lessons in physics, language, 
morality, all together. Her main business seems to be the training of 
faculty, and she subordinates to this' the orderly, acquisition of knowledge 
by her pupils. We are to imitate Nature in training faculty, but with a 
definite aim as regards subjects. 

9. Nature' 's teaching it often inaccurate ; not, however, from any defect in 
her method, but from inherited defects in her pupils. If she has not origin- 
ally given a sound brain, sue does not generally herself improve upon her 
handiwork. The impressions received by a feeble brain become blurred, 
imperfect conceptions, and nature often leaves them so. It is the educator's 
business, however, to endeavor to improve upon her labors,— to ascertain 
the original fault, and by apt exercises to amend it. 

3. Nature's teaching often appears to be overdone. She gives ten thousand 



302 spencer's education 

exercises to develop faculty, but she continues to give them when that pur- 
pose is answered. The educator is to imitate her in very frequently repeat- 
ing his lessons, but to cease when the object is gained. 

4. Nature does not secure the results of Iter lessons with a direct aim tc mental 
and moral improvement. She exercises various powers to a certain extent 
and with certain objects ; but she does not prompt to their improvement 
beyond this point, nor exercise them equally upon objects unconnected with 
animal wants and instincts. We are to imitate Nature in gaining such 
results for our pupils as she gains, but we are to go beyond her in securing 
these results as a means to the attainment of a higher platform of knowl- 
edge and power. 

5. Nature accustoms her pupils to little, and thai the simplest, generalization. 
For any care that she takes, the materials suitable for this process may 
remain unquickened throughout the whole of a man's life. The educator is 
to imitate Nature in prompting his pupils to generalize on facts, but to sur- 
pass her in carrying them forward in practice. 

6. Nature is relentless in her discipline. She takes no account of extenuating 
circumstances. To disobey is to die. She not only punishes the offender for 
his offence, but often makes him suffer for the offences of others. She 
involves him in all the consequences of his actions, and often gives him no 
opportunity for repentance. The educator, on the other hand, while allow- 
ing his pupil to be visited by the consequences of his actions, is to prevent 
ruinous consequences— to give him room for repentance, to love the offen- 
der while punishing the offence, and to allow for extenuating circumstances. 

Nature's teaching, then, while in general the model of the educator's, 
requires adaptation, extension, and correction, in order to make the best 
use of it. The old adage, " Art improves Nature," applies undoubtedly to 
the art of education : a truth which even Pestalozzi— certainly himself a 
choice specimen of Nature's teaching, a head boy in her school— failed, as 
we shall see, to appreciate.— Syraw.ise edition, pp. 93, 9k. 

On the other hand, M. Compayre says : 

Mr. Spencer is to be commended for having shown that for moral educa- 
tion as for intellectual education, the method which approaches nature the 
nearest is also the best. The return to nature which was the characteristic 
of Rousseau's theories and of Pestalozzi 's practice, is also the dominant 
trait of Mr. Spencer's pedagogy. 

If we look closely into the matter, this decided purpose to follow nature 



NOTES 303 

implicates something besides the superficial condemnation of methods intro- 
duced by art and human device. It supposes a fundamental belief,--the 
belief in the beneficent purpose of natural instincts. To have confidence 
in nature, to fall back on the spontaneous forces of the soul, because we 
discern behind them or in them a higher providence or an internal foresight, 
is a belief generally useful and suggestive for conducting human affairs, 
but particularly necessary for directing the education of man. It is not 
without some surprise that we discover this belief at the basis of Mr. 
Spencer's pedagogy, as though, by a contradiction which is not new, the 
evolutionist philosophy, which seems to exclude final causes from the con- 
ception of the universe, had been practically constrained to bow before 
them, and to proclaim, at least in the matter of education, the salutary 
efficacy of the theory which admits them.— History of Pedagogy, pp, f>~>3, S.%. 

Page 80 — The Red Indian and the Bushman. — Prof. W. II. 
Payne says : 

Now a few words as to the Red Indian, the Bushman, and the account- 
ant. Whatever proof there is in these illustrations is evidently of this sort : 
for his guidance, the Indian needs agility and swiftness, and these endow- 
ments are best secured by the actual pursuit of animals ; what the Bushman 
needs for his guidance is telescopic vision, and this is best acquired by obey- 
ing the needs of his daily life ; the accountant needs the ability of rapid 
computation, and the stress of his daily life forces this ability upon him. 
When generalized, the thought takes this form : the stress of one's environ- 
ment begets the very power that is needed to support the conditions of that 
environment. * * * 

Mr. Spencer's theory of education values is in perfect accord with his 
philosophy. The Bed Indian for example, was evolved out of certain fixed 
conditions, and, if he is to remain a Bed Indian (as by the new philosophy 
he ought), he must in no respect transcend his environment. He must sup- 
port existence in the spot where fate planted him, and just the guidance he 
needs for this purpose is best gained in his predetermined struggle for 
existence. Any greater power would be useless, and any new endowment 
would unfit him for the place to which " Nature " had assigned him. All 
the walks of life furnish illustrations of Mr. Spencer's meaning. Each man 
is predetermined to follow some craft; and the endowment he needs for 
this purpose is best acquired by devoting himself to the duties of his craft. 
For example, the comfort of the tailor requires him to be bow-legged, and 



304 spencer's education 

the practice of his art tends to make him bow-legged. Under this concep- 
tion, it must be granted that "the education of most value for guidance 
must, at the same time, be the education of most value for discipline." 

But there is a different conception of human destiny, and this involves a 
different theory of education values. The principal elements in this other 
conception are as follows : (1) Man is not the passive victim of his environ- 
ment, but has such power of modification and control as either to transcend 
that environment or virtually to recreate it. (2) Man is a member of the 
human race, rather than of a caste, and he is predetermined to an upward 
growth towards the highest type of his kind. (3) Education is not fate, but 
is a process of growth, modified, controlled, and perfected by human art. 
(4) The main purpose of education is to permit the individual to participate 
in the conscious life of the race. 

On these grounds we object to Mr. Spencer's treatment of the Red 
Indian, the Bushman, and the accountant. The first need of the Indian and 
the Bushman in particular, is to become men ; and for this purpose there 
should be considerably less activity in the lines of swiftness, agility, and 
telescopic vision ; and considerably more in the lines of ploughing, building, 
and thinking. Abilities not given by " Nature " should be created by 
human art. This " Nature " should not dominate over man, but should be 
subjugated by man. Even the accountant deserves better treatment than 
Mr. Spencer prescribes for him. He should aspire to something better than 
" to add up several columns of figures simultaneously." He is a man by bet- 
ter right than he is a machine, and, as such, he may even learn to philoso- 
phize ; but for this purpose, he has need of a discipline quite different from 
that which will merely furnish him with the guidance required by an 
accountant. When we consider the requirements of a libei*al education, or 
that course of training which will raise a human being from the bondage of 
"Nature "up towards the typical man, it is not true that the practical 
value of a study is identical with its disciplinary value. On the contrary, it 
is much neai*er the truth to assert that these two values are in an inverse ratio 
to each other, or that a subject that is most valuable for maintaining the 
struggle for existence is least valuable for purposes of human culture. 

* * * Arithmetic and history furnish examples of my statement. To 
be intensely practical to the business man, arithmetic should be taught as 
a system of rules, or better still, as a manipulation of tables, as in the case 
cited ; the nearer an accountant approaches an arithmetical machine the 



NOTES 305 

more rapidly and the more surely can he do his specific tasks. To be mind- 
ful of the rationale of processes would sadly hamper Mr. Spencer's ac- 
countant. 

" The centipede was happy quite, 

Until the t<>ad in fun 

Asked, ' Pray, which leg comes after which?' 

Which worked her mind to such a pitch, 

She lay distracted in a ditch. 

Considering how to run." * 

Now arithmetic, taught in this mechanical way, while having a high value 
for guidance, lias almost no value whatever for discipline; while arithmetic, 
taught as a science, has a very high value as a specific discipline, but has 
a much lower practical value than in the previous case. It is a fact of com- 
mon observation that a pupil well taught in the science of arithmetic can- 
not compete with the merchant's or the grocer's clerk in rapid and accurate 
computation. Plato was at least instinctively right in declaring that, for 
purposes of a liberal education, arithmetic should not be cultivated " with 
a view to buying and selling, as merchants or shopkeepers." — Contributions, 
pp. hh-hl, 62. 

Page 84'— Tlie moral 'powers. — Here M. Compayre protests : 
That science develops the intellectual qualities, such as judgment, 
memory, reasoning, we admit ; that it develops them better than the study 
of the languages, let even this be granted ! But it is impossible for us 
not to protest when Mr. Spencer represents science as endowed with the 
same efficacy for inspiring moral qualities, such as perseverance, sincerity, 
activity, resignation to the will of nature, piety even, and religion. Science 
appeal's to us an infallible means of animating and exciting the different 
energies of the soul ; but will it also have the quality of disciplining them ? 
Thanks to science, man will know that which it is proper to do, if he wishes 
to be a workman, a parent, or a citizen, but on this express condition, that 
he wills ; and this education of the will, is it still science which shall be 
charged with if? We may be allowed to doubt it. 

Mr. Spencer himself now seems to share this doubt, if we may trust one 
of his recent works. t " Faith in books and in nature," it is there said, " is 
one of the superstitions of our times." We deceive ourselves, says the 

* Quoted from " The Universities, in their Relation to the Training of 
Teachers", by Rev. H. Quick. 

t Introduction to Social Science, p. 39i. 



306 

author, when we establish a connection between the intelligence and the 
will, for conduct is determined not by knowledge but by emotion. 

" He who would hope to teach geometry by giving lessons in Latin, 
would scarcely be more unreasonable than those who count on producing 
better sentiments by means of a discipline of the intellectual faculties."— 
Histoid of Pedagogy, p. 5hl. 

Page 92 — The chapter as a whole. — Of this Prof. W. H. Payne 
says : 

The worth of knowledge is tested solely by the practical use that can be 
made of it ; a child must be taught that which will soonest and most effect- 
ually convert him into an instrument. In no part of this famous chapter do 
I discover a sentence that can be interpreted in favor of a liberal education ; 
that is, of an education that is catholic and humane, or that is to be admin- 
istered on the hypothesis that the child's humanity takes precedence of his 
functions as an instrument. On this subject Renan speaks as follows : 
" The reasoning that I oppose starts from the low and false doctrine that 

instruction serves only for the practical use that is made of it The poor 

man should be ignorant, for education and knowledge are useless to him. 
Blasphemy, gentlemen ! The culture of the mind and soul are duties for 
every man. They are not simply ornaments. They are things as sacred as 
religion."*— Contributions, p. 2^5. 

Prof. Joseph Payne says : 

After all, however, it will be observed that, while the study of the physi- 
cal sciences tends to give power over the material forces of the universe, it 
leaves untouched the greater forces of the human heart ; it makes a botan- 
ist, a geologist, an electrician, an architect, an engineer, but it does not 
make a man. The hopes, the fears, the hatreds and the loves, the emotions 
which stir us to heroic action, the reverence which bows in the presence of 
the inexpressibly good and great : the sensitive moral taste, which shrinks 
from vice and approves virtue ; the sensitive mental taste which appreciates 
the sublime and beautiful in art, and sheds delicious tears over the immortal 
works of genius— all this wonderful world of sensation and emotion lies 
outside that world which is especially cultivated by the physical sciences. 
This is no argument, of course, against their forming a proper, nay an 

* " La Pamille et PEtat," p. 3. 



NOTES : >07 

essential, part of the curriculum, but it is an argument against their taking 
the first place. — Lectures, Small's edition, p. 161. 

And again : 

I think that his main argument involves a fundamental fallacy. Stated 
briefly it is this, that as the function which education has to discharge is 
how to prepare us for complete living, the child ought even while yet a child 
to learn everything which may conduce to the end. It would be easy to 
show from the manner in which the organism gradually acquires its powers, 
that it is quite impossible to comply with this demand. The growing mind, 
for instance, is utterly incapable of learning— i. e., so as to know— the immense 
number of subjects necessary by the theory for complete living ; and even 
if it were capable of getting a smattering of universal knowledge, such a 
knowledge would not be a preparation for complete living. It is quite 
extraordinary that Mr. Spencer, w r ho shows us in his second essay how 
well he appreciates the problem of intellectual education, did not perceive 
that such education is directly opposed by its very nature, to the theory 
that the attempt to grasp universal knowledge is the same thing as a prepa- 
ration for complete living.— Lectures on the History of Education, p. 185. 

Prof. Williams says : 

On a closer examination of this famous chapter, philosophical though its 
analysis appears, strongly as its conclusions seem to be enforced, and con- 
vineing as its argument is likely to impress one as being on a cursory read- 
ing,— it is sure to rouse in the critical reader a feeling that something esst ti- 
dal is lacking, that there is some latent source of error in the discussion. 

A critical examination shows that the source of error is twofold, being 
first, an imperfect view of what constitutes complete living ; and second, a 
temporary massing together under the vague name science, of subjects gen- 
erically unlike in character, omitting only from this heterogeneous mass a 
group of subjects whose use especially characterizes man, and is both the 
symbol and the instrument of his superiority among living beings : for man 
is not merely an observing, thinking, morally judging, and religiously aspir- 
ing animal ; but he is all these, and that too in a constantly increasing 
degree, because he is also a talking animal, who uses language as the 
embodiment of his various experiences and is thus enabled to grow more 
intelligent by his experiences.— History of Modern Education, j>. 




308 

Page 100 — Montaigne. — Michael Ey quern de Montaigne (French, 

1533-1592), in his brilliant "Es- 
says" founded the school of 
thinkers on education of which 
Locke and Rousseau were after- 
ward the great exponents. In 
teaching languages he would dis- 
card grammar and teach by con- 
versation. He insisted upon phy- 
sical education. "We have not 
to train up a soul, nor yet a 
body, but a man ; and we cannot divide him." Put in the short- 
est form, Montaigne's idea of the end of education is, that a man 
should be trained to the use of his own reason. "A man can 
never be wise save by Ms own wisdom." The key-notes to his 
method are these : — self -activity of the pupil in the use of all his 
powers and capabilities ; things before words ; judgment and 
understanding before memory ; adaptation of instruction to the 
pupil's present abilities. Like Milton and Locke, he dealt only 
with the education of gentlemen. 

Page 100 — Batter sea Training Sc7wol. — This school in London 
was founded as a private enterprise in 1839 by James Phillip 
Kay (afterward Sir James Kay Shuttleworth), secretary of the 
Committee of Council on Education, and E. C. Tunfel, in order 
to train teachers for charitable and reformatory institutions. In 
1843 it came under management of the National Society. It was 
conducted on principles derived from Pestalozzi and De Fellen- 
berg, "to reconcile a simplicity of life not remote from the 
habits of the humbler classes, with such proficiency in intellectual 
attainments, such a knowledge of method, and such skill in the 
art of teaching, as would enable the pupils selected to become 



NOTES 309 

efficient masters of elementary schools." The diet was frugal, 
the pupils did all the housework, a garden was cultivated, gym- 
nastics w T as introduced, and long walks were taken. See Barnard, 
ix. 170-200. 

Page 102— Marcel.— Claude Marcel (French, 1793-1876), was 
one of Napoleon's soldiers. From 1825 to 1863 he lived in Cork, 
being French consul after 1848 ; and there he was the exclusive 
teacher of his nine children. In 1865 he returned to Paris, where 
he became an influential member of the society for elementary 
instruction, and was made chevalier of the legion of honor. His 
"Language as a Means of Mental Culture " appeared in two 
volumes in 1853, and is among the most rare and most valuable 
of pedagogic treatises. Quick summarizes his treatise thus : 

Marcel's notion of education is three-fold, viz., Physical, Intellectual, and 
Moral Education ; the 1st aiming at health, strength, and beauty ; the 2ud 
at mental power and the acquisition of knowledge ; the 3rd at piety, justice, 
goodness, and wisdom. According to him the Creator has made the exercise 
of our faculties pleasurable. 

Prof. Joseph Payne says of Marcel's book : * 

A work of conspicuous excellence on the whole art of teaching, and well 
deserving to be reprinted. 

Other references to Marcel will be found on pp. 104, 106, 108, 
131, 158. 

Page 102— Wyse.— Sir Thomas Wyse (English, 1801- ?) was 
chairman of committees of the Central Society of Education, 
wmich issued in 1837, 1838, and 1849 three "Publications ", made 
up of papers by members. Those of Mr. Wyse were : in the 
"First Publication", "Education in the United Kingdom" 
(pp. 27-64); in the "Second Publication", "On the Lyceum 
System in America" (pp. 203-228); and in the "Third Publica- 
tion", "On the present State of Prussian Education " (pp. 375- 

* Lectures, Syracuse edition, p. 120. 



310 SPENCER S EDUCATION 

438). The article on Geometry from which this extract is taken 
will be found in Barnard xiii. 383. Mr. Spencer makes another 
reference to Wyse on page 108. 

Page 104 — De Morgan. — Augustus De Morgan (English, 1806- 
1871) was fourth wrangler at Cambridge, and first professor of 
mathematics in University College, which chair he held till death 
except from 1831 to 1836. His works on mathematics and allied 
subjects are standard. 
Page 107 — Pestalozzi. — Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (Swiss, 
1746-1827), known as the founder 
of "object-teaching", is the most 
celebrated of educational reformers. 
He was a lonely child, and grew 
up with excitable feelings and a 
lively imagination which prevented 
circumspection and forethought. 
He failed as a clergyman, failed as 
a schoolmaster, but was unexpect- 
edly successful as an author, his " Leonard and Gertrude" (1781) 
making him famous, afterward followed by "How Gertrude 
teaches her Children". After the French revolution, his friends 
came into power, and asked him what post he would accept. He 
replied, "I want to be a schoolmaster." So in 1798 he was sent 
to Stanz to care for orphan children, removing in 1799 to Burg- 
dorf, and in 1805 to Yverdun, where his school gained a Euro- 
pean reputation. Pupils flocked to it, and his fame attracted 
many distinguished visitors. His life by De Guimps is one of the 
most interesting of biographies. Other references to him will be 
found on pp. 113, 127, 128, 161. 

Page 120— Rediscovery.— Mr. W. H. Payne devotes chapter v. 
of his "Contributions" to a refutation of this theory of Mr. 
Spencer. He says: 




NOTES 311 

Mr. Spencer attributes the enunciation of this doctrine to Comte, though 
Condillac had previously drawn up a scheme of education avowedly based 
on this assumed principle. 

Mr. Spencer's proof of this doctrine is to this effect : what is true of the 
aggregate must be true of each of the units comprising the aggregate ; the 
race acquired its knowledge in a certain way, and therefore each indi- 
vidual of the race must acquire his knowledge in the same way. The word 
Must, in Mr. Spencer's thought, at once involves us in a curious dilemma. 
Had he said Should, or Ought, we might be forewarned against an error ; 
but if it be true that there is but one way in which the individual can gain 
his knowledge, as Mr. Spencer declares, then error is impossible ; the cur- 
rent mode of acquisition is the normal mode, and to preach a reform in this 
particular is an inexcusable waste of breath. But, as a matter of fact, Mr. 
Spencer prescribes a radical reform ; it follows, therefore, that the genesis 
of knowledge in the individual need not of necessity be the same as the 
genesis of knowledge in the race. The only form in which the question can 
be discussed is this : Should the individual gain his knowledge in the same 
way in which the race as a whole gained jts knowledge ? * * * 

It will be granted that in knowledge, as in wealth, the race has made 
progress from age to age, and even from generation to generation. Now 
progress is possible only under this condition : inheritance supplemented by 
individual acquisition* Without inheritance there can be no progress ; for 
then, each generation must start where the preceding generation started. 
And progress is quite as impossible without individual acquisition ; for in 
this case each generation would stop where the preceding generation 
stopped.— Contributions, pp. 87-89. 

M. Compayre remarks : 

There is, doubtless, an element of truth in the error of Condillac. The 
sciences and the arts began with the observation of particulars, and thence 
slowly rose to general principles ; and to-day no one thinks of denying the 
necessity of proceeding in the same manner in education, so far as this is 
possible. It is well at the first to present facts to the child, and to lead him 
step by step, from observation to observation, to the law which governs 

* " The science of humanity, like humanity, ought to be progressive ; and 
there is progress only on two conditions : first, to represent all one's prede- 
cessors ; then, to be one's self, to sum up all anterior labors, and to add to 
them."— Cousin, " History of Modem Philosophy" {New York, 1860), i.,p. 212. 



them and includes them ; but there is a wide distance between the discreet 
use of the inductive and experimental method, and the exaggerations of 
Condillac. No one shoiild seriously think of absolutely suppressing the 
synthetic method of exposition, which, taking advantage of the work 
accomplished through the centuries, teaches at the outset the truths that 
have been already acquired. It would be absurd to compel the child pain- 
fully to recommence the toil of the race.— History of Pedagogy, p. 313. 

Page 120— Comte,— Auguste Cointe (French, 1795 ?-1857), whom 
G. H. Lewes considers the Bacon of the 19th century, began his 
bold speculations at fourteen, and in 1826 nearly died of over- 
Avork. In 1832 he was made professor of mathematics at the 
Ecole Polytechnique, but in 1852 was obliged to resign on 
account of differences with his colleague. His "positive phil- 
osophy " claims that man passes through three stages : 1st, the 
theological, in which a supernatural origin is sought for all 
phenomena ; 2d, the metaphysical, in which the sensuously super- 
natural is set aside as incredible ; 3d, the positive, in which the 
mind gives up the inquiry into causes and essences, and concerns 
itself with the laws of phenomena. 

Page 125— Study made pleasurable. — On this point Prof. W. 
H. Payne says : 

The latest criterion for judging of the quality of teaching is the amount 
of pleasure-giving that it furnishes. While no one questions that good 
teaching will inspire a general air of happiness, there are very many who 
insist that work is not always pleasure-giving, but that even such work must 
be done in every good school. This is a psychological problem of no great 
difficulty, and its solution would set at rest a disputed question of great 
importance. It will probably be found that a study may be disagreeable 
because it involves a mode of mental activity that has never been developed 
or that has fallen into disuse ; and so the study may serve a far better pur- 
pose than one that accords with the free working of a well-developed 
power. The distribution of mental aliment follows the same law as the 
distribution of physical aliment : the more vigorous faculty or organ will 
take the ion's share, while the weaker faculty or organ will be left to starve. 



NOTES 313 

We know that this is a law even of the spiritual life : " For he that hath, to 
him shall be given ; and he that hath not, from him shall bo taken even 
that which he hath."— Contributions, p. 2S. 

Prof. Joseph Payne says : 

The apt teacher, however, succeds. not by amusing his pupil, but by sym- 
pathizing with him and thus gaining his confidence— by understanding and 
entering into his difficulties— by encouraging him with word or look, when 
he is puzzled,— never intruding help when it is not needed, never withhold- 
ing it when it is.— Lectures, Boston edition, p. 273. 

But M. Compayre says : 

Children of every age are jealous of their independence and eager for 
pleasure. No one before Locke had so clearly recognized the need of the 
activity and liberty which are natural to the child, or so stx-ongly insisted on 
the necessity of respecting his independent disposition and his personal 
tastes. Here again English pedagogy of the seventeenth century meets its 
illustrious successor of the nineteenth. Herbert Spencer has thoroughly 
demonstrated the fact that the mind really appropriates only the knowledge 
that affords it pleasure and agreeable exercise.— History of Pedagogy, pp. 
206, 207. 

And Mr. Quick speaks with emphasis : 

But the present dullness of school-work is not without its defenders. 
They insist on the importance of breaking in the mind to hard work. This 
can only be done, they say, by tasks which are only repulsive to it. The 
school-boy does not like, and ought not to like, learning Latin grammar any 
more than the colt should find pleasure in running round in a circle : the very 
fact that these things are not pleasant makes them beneficial. Pei'haps a 
certain amount of such training may train down the mind and qualify it for 
some drudgery from which it might otherwise revolt ; but if this result is 
attained, it is attained at the sacrifice of the intellectual activity which is 
necessary for any higher function. As Carlyle says, when speaking of 
routine work generally, you want nothing but a sorry nag to draw your 
sand-cart ; your high-spirited Arab will be dangerous in such a capacity. 
But who would advocate for all colts a training which should render them 
fit for nothing but such humble toil ? I have spoken elsewhere on this sub- 
ject, and here I will merely express my strong conviction that boys' minds 
are frequently dwarfed, and their interest in intellectual pursuits blighted, 



314 

by the practice of employing the first years of their school life in learning 
by heart things which it is quite impossible for them to understand or care 
for. Teachers set out by assuming that little boys can not understand any- 
thing, and that all we can do with them is to keep them quiet and cram 
them with forms which will come in useful at a later age. When the boys 
have been taught on this system for two or three years, their teacher com- 
plains that they are stupid and inattentive, and that so long as they can say 
a thing by heart they never trouble themselves to understand it. In other 
words, the teacher grumbles at them for doing precisely what they have 
been taught to do, for repeating words without any thought of their mean- 
m g > * * * it W ould be a great step in advance if teachers in general 
were as dissatisfied with themselves as they usually are with their pupils.— 
Educational Reformers, 2W- %5%, 253. 

Page 126 — Fellenlerg. — Philip Emanuel von Fellenberg (Swiss, 
1771-1844) studied law at.Tubingen, 
and afterward made a walking-tour 
in southern Europe, taking quar- 
ters in the cottages of the peas- 
antry, that he might know at first 
hand the real condition and the 
manners of the poor, and the edu- 
cation of the agricultural peas- 
antry. He took some part in the 
French Revolution, but in 1799 he purchased the estate of 
Hofwyl, near Bern, and in 1804 founded an asylum for forsaken 
children. In 1807 he opened a school of agriculture ; in 1808 a 
philanthropin, or, school for children of the higher classes ; in 
1830 a real school for children of the middle classes, and after- 
ward an infant school and normal classes. He aimed to make 
agriculture the basis of a new system ' ' for elevating the lower 
and rightly training the higher orders of the State, and welding 
them together in a closer union." He considered the school self- 
supporting through the manual labor of the pupils, and it became 




NOTES S 3 1 5 

famous. In 1804 and in 1S17 Pestalozz iwas for a time associated 
with him, and Herbart was at one time employed as a teacher. 

Page 133 — Names of the attributes. — Prof. Joseph Payne says: 
Is it not singular that so ingenious a man does not see that this process, 
which he lauds so highly, is only a sensible way of teaching, not tdena 
merely, hut the mother tongue? The teacher is trying to get the pupil to 
attach clear ideas to the use of words; and while professing to despise the 
teaching of words, is in reality doing little else ; for words are, in a well 
understood sense, the depositories of the knowledge, spirit and wisdom of 
a nation. I am perfectly aware that the pupil, while thus engaged, is learn- 
ing much more than mere words; but I maintain that he is also learning 
words while he is learning things, and that the antithesis so much insisted 
on is more specious than real.— Lectures, Small's edition, p. 258. 

Page \3$—Baeo)i.— Francis Bacon (English, 1521-1626) was a 
precocious child, and entered Cam- 
bridge at 13. After study in Paris 
he practised law, and began to ad- 
vance rapidly about 1603, becom- 
ing attorney-general in 1613, keeper 
I of the great seal in 1617, and lord 
V *'" 'j^ chancellor in 1619. with the title 

-.. ., Baron Ycrulam. (He was never 

"'\^ : U^^ Lord Bacon.) But he used this last 

office corruptly, and in 1821 was convicted on his own confession, 
and banished from public life. Though he was mean in charac- 
ter, he was magnificent in intellect. His "Essays" appeared in 
1597, his " Advancement of Learning" in 1605, his Novum Or- 
gano)i" in 1620. "By recalling the minds of men from barren 
speculation, and from exclusive humanistic study, to the relief of 
man's estate through the investigation of nature by exact obser- 
vation and rigorous experiment leading to induction of her laws, 
he added an entire pedagogy and new realm of profitable study." 





316 

Page 158— Horace Mann.— (American, 1796-1859), was the 
most eminent and successful pro- 
moter of popular education of his 
time. As lawyer, statesman, and 
philanthropist he had achieved 
considerable reputation, when in 
1837 he became secretary of the 
newly-established Board of Edu- 
cation of Massachusetts. He held 
this position for 12 years, working 
16 hours a day. He made use mainly of three agencies : (1) a 
series of teacher's institutes ; (2) a monthly Common School Jour- 
nal; and (3) a wide circulation of his Annual School Reports to the 
Board of Education, which still rank as among the best of educa- 
tional literature. In 1843, he visited Europe, and his compari- 
sons in his 7th report led to a heated controversy with the masters 
of the Boston schools. In 1848 he resigned to become United 
States Senator, and in 1854 he became president of Antioch Col- 
lege, where he remained till his death. 

Page 161— Pillans — James Pillans (Scotch, 1779-1865) after 
graduation from Edinburgh taught for a time at Eton, and in 
1809 became rector of the high school of Edinburgh, where he 
was so successful that foreigners came to that city to visit his 
classes. He used to say that he was never perfectly happy except 
when teaching. In 1820 he became professor of humanity in 
the university, retiring in 1863 at the ripe age of 84. He took 
great interest in national education, and was one of the first to 
advocate governmental inspection of schools, and the establish- 
ment of normal schools. His principal writings on education 
were gathered in 1856 into a volume called " Contributions to the 
Cause of Education 1 '. 



NOTES oil 

Page 162 — Tlie chapter as a whole. — Prof. Joseph Payne says : 
The second essay, on " Intellectual Education ", is most excellent. Most 
of what Mr. Spencer says on this point is in perfect accordance with the 
doctrines I have set before you in my lectures, though I have arrived at them 
by an entirely different course of inquiry. — Lectures on tJu History of Educa- 
tion, p. 1S6. 

Mr. Quick says : 

These principles are, perhaps, not all of them unassailable, and even 
where they are true, many mistakes must be expected before we arrive at 
the best method of applying them : but the only reason that can be assigned 
for the small amount of influence they have hitherto exercised is, that most 
teachers are as ignorant of them as of the abstrusest doctrines of Kant and 
Hegel.— Educational Reformers, v- -40- 
Page 165 — The culmination of education. — Prof. S. S. Laurie 
says : 

We cannot, of course, teach boys and girls at school how to discharge 
their duties as parents at the school age; such instructions could have no 
link of association with the knowledge and experience of the boy and girl, 
and would, therefore, be wholly futile. We teach children these their 
future duties when they grow to be men and women, by being ourselves an 
example to them which they will remember and imitate ; nothing in educa- 
tion is so potent as tradition early received. But when Spencer suggests 
that the education of young men and women should culminate in the study 
of education— that is to say, of moral education— I think he gives utterance 
to a novel idea which is not to be set hastily aside because of its novelty. 
Perhaps it will one day be accepted as a truism— at least as regards young 
women.— Educational Review, iv. US5. 

Page 172 — Proximate aim. — Prof. Laurie says : 
The proximate end as conceived by Mr. Spencer has its value, but as an 
educational end it is contemptible, and would take the heart out of any 
teacher worth his salt. There is such a conception as that of the ideal 
man ; that is to say, the man to whom the great ethical ideas of justice, 
benevolence, integrity, purity, and so forth, are a sacred possession, and 
who strives daily to make them the guide of his conduct, though they may 
often lead him to suffering, nay, sometimes to death. No man succeeds 



318 SPENCER^ EDUCATION' 

perfectly ; but, that each may be even such as he is, it is necessary that he 
strive after something higher than his actual attainment. In the idea resides 
the imperative moral law, and it is this the true man would fain, by God's 
help, fulfil. The fulfilment of the law in the ideas is the spiritual life -the 
true life of a rational spirit ; all else is life inadequate and imperfect. This 
true life is, for each, simply the completion of himself as man. All created 
things tend, unconsciously or consciously, through the forces within them, 
to their own fulfilment or completion, while the self-conscious man pur- 
posely endeavors to realize that fulfilment in himself, if he is to be truly 
man. This I submit, is the true doctrine ; and it is to this we have to 
educate children and youths. It is also, substantially at least, the doctrine 
of Plato, Aristotle, and the New Testament.— Educational Review, iv. h86, h8l. 

Page 210— Locke.— John Locke (English, 1632-1704), long cele- 
brated as a philosopher, has ex- 
erted wide influence on educational 
history through his "Thoughts 
concerning Education ", and in a 
much smaller degree by his essay 
on " Studies". He thinks educa- 
tion consists in 1st, virtue ; 2d, 
wisdom ; 3d, good-breeding ; and 
4th and last, learning. " Not but 
that I think learning a great help to well-disposed minds ; but 
yet it must be confessed that in others not so disposed it helps 
them only to be more foolish or worse men." Wisdom is a blend- 
ing of prudence, foresight, knowledge of the world, and ability 
in affairs, with an aversion to mere cunning. Locke strenuously 
objects to frequent resorts to the rod. "In all the parts of edu- 
cation, most time and application is to be bestowed on that which 
is like to be of greatest consequence and frequentest use." Quick 
says it may be doubted whether we have yet reached the full ap, 
plication of his principles. 




NOTES 319 

Page 210 — Punishment by consequences. — M. Compayre remarks : 

Mr. Spencer's principle is excellent, but the opportunities for applying it 
are far less frequent than our philosopherl)elieves. The child, in m< >st cases, 
is too little reflective, too little reasonable, to comprehend, and especially to 
heed, the suggestions of personal interest. 

Let us add that this principle is wholly negative, that it furnishes at most 
only the means of shunning evil ; that even in according to it an efficacy it 
does not have, it would still be necessary to reproach it with narrowing 
moral culture by reducing it to the rather mean solicitude for simple utility ; 
finally, that it exercises no influence on the development of the positive 
virtues, on the disinterested education of morality in what is noble and 
exalted. 

Finally, the system of natural punishments would incur the danger of 
often being cruel, and of causing the child an irreparable injury. Let pass 
the pin-cushion, the boiling water, and the candle-flame,— examples which 
Mr. Spencer proposes ; but what shall we say of the bar of red-hot iron 
which he lets the child pick up? What shall be said, above all, of the grave 
consequences entailed by the faults of a young man left to himself? 

" Would it not 'be," says Greard justly, " to condemn the child to a 
regime so severe as to be an injustice, to count solely on the effects of 
natural reactions and inevitable consequences, for the purpose of discipline 
ing his will ? The penalty which they provoke is the most often enormous 
as compared with the fault which has produced them, and man himself 
demands for his conduct other sanctions than those of a harsh reality. He 
desires that we judge the intention as well as the fact ; that he be commend- 
ed for his efforts ; that in the first instance extreme measures be not taken 
against him ; that the blow fall on him if needs be, but without crushing 
him, and while extending to him a hand to help him up." *— History of Ped- 
agogy, pp. 552, 553. 

E. E. White points outf that in discussing punishment by 
natural consequences Mr. Spencer does not recognize the obvious 
limitation of insubordination or rebellion. 

Mr. Laurie says : 

* See the Esprit de discipline dan Fedvcation, a memoir of Ureard pub- 
lished in the Revue Pidagogique, 1883, No. 11. 

1 School Management, p. 207. 



320 spencer's education 

Now we accept this. In our case, however, the consequences of miscon- 
duct are the inner pain of sentiment ignored, of a foregone ideal, of a 
broken law, of an outraged nature ; and in the case of the young, the pain 
of the disapprobation of teachers and parents, as embodying for the young 
the ideal and the law. Material consequences may or may not follow— that 
is to say, the punishment of the body in various ways, direct and indirect, 
positive and negative, whether they shoidd ever follow is one of the debated 
questions. * * * 

If I amuse myself by sticking a pin into my leg I feel pain, and I seek 
some other amusement in future. There is here a " natural reaction "—that 
is to say, nature instantaneously punishes an infraction of nature's laws. 
Spencer's main proposition, then, as regards method of moral training, is, 
let the reaction of nature take place. Now, it is not morally wrong to stick 
a pin into my leg. It is a physical miscalculation. Mr. Spencer confounds 
moral and emotional with purely physical reactions. When a little boy, in 
his anger, smashes his mother's best china-bowl, the natural reaction is a 
feeling of great satisfaction. When he burns his catechism in the hope of so 
ending a painful series of daily lessons, the flames are less bright and joyous 
than those that blaze up in his own heart. This is the natural reaction. 
Then, again, when he climbs a tree, and falls and breaks a leg, the natural 
reaction of his being such a goose as to lose hold of one footing before he 
has secured the next, is manifest. He has broken a physical law, but not a 
moral law, and must take the physical consequences. If he has taken 
firm hold, and secures the object of his ambition— the thrush's nest— and 
sells the eggs for 6d. a piece, he now enjoys the natural reaction, as before 
he suffered from it. It is quite clear from these illustrations that "natural 
reactions " are outside the moral sphere altogether, and that, if there be 
anything immoral in his act, it must arise in some other way. In what way ? 
It arises from the fact that he has broken a moral law ; and that moral law 
can only be the command of his parents and teachers. What, then, is the 
natural reaction ? Spencer gets so muddled over his natural reactions that 
he begins, toward the end of this chapter, to see that he is somehow wrong, 
and says that the disapprobation of the parent or teacher is itself a " natural 
reaction ". Here he is at last on the right scent. But what becomes of his 
original " natural " reaction? The natural reactions he has been talking of 
ai'e the reactions of nature in the sense of physical laws. He would now 
include the parent's disapprobation under the same head, using the word 



NOTES 321 

" natural " in the vulgar sense of what might be " reasonably expected to 

follow." I see my boy in the tree where he has been told not to go; Am I 
cunningly to shake it that it may cause him to fall and break his leg, and s< > 
facilitate the natural reaction? What natural react ion— the reaction of 
physical law or of moral law? Is this t<> be his punishment, a fall that 
breaks his leg and to which I have cunningly contributed? I think not. 
The parent who did it would soon be in the hands of the police. 

In fact, the much-lauded doctrine of natural reactions, in the sense of 
reactions < »f physical law, carries us a very little way indeed. At best it is a 
physical reaction to a breach of physical law. We are compelled from the 
first to consider moral reactions for moral offences, and let thu physical 
blunders correct themselves, after we have given due warning. 

It is evident enough that, following the rule of natural reactions without 
considering moral elements, we should constantly be led into blunders. 
When a boy breaks a wineglass through carelessness, we might say that he 
should be required to replace it ; but " nature " does not require this, and to 
insist on it would be unjust. If he is the son of poor parents, and makes 
great efforts to economize, with a view to replacing it, he does so because 
of his feeling of sympathy with his parents in their loss, and of vexation 
with himself, as having inadvertently caused a loss. The replacement, then, 
is a moral act pure and simple, and has nothing to do with nature's reac- 
tions. If, again, he has broken a glass intentionallij,m order to pay his 
parents out for some imaginary injustice, there is no natural reaction of 
replacement, but quite the reverse. He would like to break two glasses. 
This is the natural reaction ; and if I wish to correct the boy, I must first get 
him to feel what the good boy, who inadvertently broke the glass, felt, and, 
out of the strength of that feeling, condemn himself, and seek to make 
restitution. Bentham's recommendation is a sound one, because, among 
other advantages, it brings in reason and common-sense to control nature's 
reactions, which are generally irrational. A good thing it is that we have 
to determine punishments, and not nature ; for nature is blind, and stupid, 
and of ten cruel. Spencer says that natural reactions are "pure justice". 
On the contrary, they very seldom are justice at all, if men do not guide and 
control them. Natural reactions are constantly too slight for the offence, 
more frequently too grave. Two boys are clambering over a high wall. 
They have no right to do so, but " boys will be boys," and one falls and 
breaks his leg ; the other falls, and escapes with a slight bruise. Which of 



322 spencer's education 

them has been justly treated by nature? Both boys will certainly be more 
careful in future, but the boy who broke his leg will, perhaps, be ever after 
afraid of high places. This, surely, is an unfortunate result. Courage is a 
virtue. By over-severity, nature has extinguished the growth of a possible 
virtue. 

I would, in conclusion, point out that Mr. Spencer's method is a method 
of merely negative training in morality, not a word is said about positive 
training. Negative training can repress the external exhibition of a vice, 
while the vice itself may be more deeply rooted than ever. I say there is no 
positive training to moral ideas, and to a habit of virtue; but with Spencer's 
moral theory how could there be ? That theory is : Do so-and-so or you 
will suffer ; you will get the minimum of pleasure and the maximum of 
pain, and the maximum of pain is vice. Accordingly you cannot train 
except negatively, if you are to work out this theory consistently. And 
negative training will produce only negative results.— Educational Review 
iv. hSO-hOl. 

Page 215— Rkhter.— Johann Paul Friederich Richter (German, 

1763-1825), often referred to as 
' ' Jean Paul ", came of a race of 
pedagogues, both his father and 
grandfather having been school- 
masters. He was himself a 
teacher, starting in 1789 a school 
of seven scholars. He was much 
loved by his pupils, seeking not 
to instil knowledge but to invoke 
faculty ; to teach, not to preach. He gathered here the ideas for 
his " Levana ", the German representative of " Emile ". Richter, 
like Rousseau, is a sentimentalist, and approaches the problem of 
education from the emotional rather than the intellectual side, 
but Richter repudiates Rousseau's careful system. "Levana " is 
a mighty maze, without a plan, yet with fixed ideas and princi- 
ples, and a safer guide than " Emile ". To educate by illusions 




NOTES 323 

and carefully prepared accidents is futile, he says, for sooner or 
later the boy will discover the deception. 

Page 229 — Mr. Kingsley. — Charley Kingsley (English, 1819- 
1S75) after graduation from Cambridge became a clergyman, but 
soon became known as an author, and as an associate of F. D. 
Maurice in efforts for bettering the physical and moral condition 
of the working-classes. In 1860 he was made professor of modern 
history at Cambridge, in 1869 canon at Chester, and in 1873 canon 
at Westminster. Among his works arc " Alexandria and her 
Schools" (1854), and "Health and Education " (1874). 



TOPICAL ANALYSIS, FOR REVIEWS 



PAGE 

INTRODUCTION. Sketch op Spencer's Life - 3 

PREFACE ------ 7 

Chapter I. WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST ! 

WORTH? - - - - 11 

i. INTRODUCTION - 11 

A. Function subordinated to appearance - - - 11 

B. The ornamental before the useful - - - 12 

1. Latin and Greek useless - - - « - 13 

2. Women dress to be admired 13 

3. Their education " accomplishments " - - - 14 

C. Social influence the aim - -_ - - 15 
I). Comparative value of studies - - - - 17 

1. The question of relative worth - - . - 18 
a. Importance of the subject - - - - - 20 
6. The measure of value 20 

The problem of right living - - - 21, 295 

2. Importance of right selection of studies - - 22 

3. Kinds of activity 23, 295 

a. Self-preservation - - - - -23,29 

b. Self-maintenance 24, 35 

c. Parental duties - - - 24. 47 

d. Good citizenship 25, 58 

e. The refinements of life - - - 25, GG 

4. Due proportion to be maintained - - - - 26 

a. Intrinsic value ----- 27 

b. Quasi-intrinsic value - - - - - 27 

c. Conventional value 28 

d. Disciplinary value - - - - - 28 

(324) 



TOPICAL ANALYSIS, FOR REVIEWS 



325 



ii. KNOWLEDGE FOR GUIDANCE - 

A. For Self-Preservation 

1. Self-preservation an instinct 

2. Hygienic knowledge important 

a. Vigorous health exceptional 

b. Half of life thrown away 

c. Physiology all-essential 

B. For Self-Maintenance 

1. The business of life 

2. Dependent on science 

a. Mathematics 

b. Machinery 

c. Physics .... 
<7. Chemistry 

e. Biology .... 

/. Sociology 

3. Scientific knowledge essential 

4. Schools have taught dead formulas 

C. For Parental Duties 

1. No training for parentage 

2. Mischief from parental ignorance 

a. Physical ... 

b. Moral -'..-'. 

c. Intellectual 

Books given too soon 
Observation checked 
Abstract taught before concrete 
Rote-learning 

3. Parents should be trained for their duties 
a. Should knoiv physiology and psychology 

D. Good citizenship 

1. History as taught valueless 

a. Unorgardzable facts 

b. Natural history of society 

2. Science the key to history 

E. The refinements of life 



rAGE 

29 



- 


30 




32 


- 


33 


34, 


295 


- 


35 




35 


36, 


296 


37, 


297 


- 


38 




39 


- 


40 




42 


- 


44 


44, 


298 


- 


46 




47 




47 




49 




49 




50 




53 




53 




54 




54 




55 




56 




57 




58 


58, 


298 




60 




61 




64 



326 spencer's education 

l'AGE 

1. The finer enjoyments .... gg 

a. Their importance .... (3^ 299 

b. The root before the blossom - - - - 67 

c. Mistake of modern education - - - 68 

2. ^Esthetic accomplishment still based on science - 69, 299 

a. In sculpture - - - - - - 70 

b. In painting ..... 71,299 

c. In music - -..''- - - 72 

d. In poetry - - - - - 73 

e. Art based on psychology - - - - 74 
/. Genius married to science - - - . 75 

3. Science necessary for appreciation - - 76 

4. Science itself poetic - - - - 77, 300 
iii. KNOWLEDGE FOR DISCIPLINE - - - 79 

A. Nature consistent - ■ - 79, 300, 303 

B. The memory - - - - 81 

C. The judgment - - - - - 83 
I). The moral po avers - - - - 84, 305 

1. Religious culture - - - -.■-•"- 85 

a. Neglect of science irreligious • - • 86 

b. True science essentially religious '■- - - 87 
Respect for law - - - - 87 
Recognition of the unknowable ... 87 

iv. CONCLUSION - - - - 89' 
A. Science is of most worth - - - -89,306 

1. Strange neglect of it - - - - 91 

2. The Cinderella of our century ... 93 

Chapter II. INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION - 93 

i. INTRODUCTION - - - - 93 

A. The old and the new - - - - - 93 

1. In religion ..... 93 

2. In government ------ 93 

3. In enjoyment ..... 93 

4. In trade restrictions^ - - - - - 93 

B. Diversity succeeds uniformity - - - 95 
1. The decline of authority - - - - 96 



TOPICAL ANALYSIS, FOR REVIEWS 327 

2/ Search for the true method - 
3. The three phases of opinion 
C. The past and the present in education 

1. The text-book period - 
a. First, a good animal - 

2. Learning by rote - 

3. Grammar after language - 

4. Object lessons - 
a. Science from objects - 

5. Study pleasurable - - - 
B. Conforming to nature - 

1. Pestalozzi's principle 

2. Curriculum dependent on development 
a. Study must be directed 

E. The Pestalozzian system - 

1. Pestalozzi's character - 

2. His inconsistencies - 
a. His principles vs. his methods 

ii. THE THEORY OF EDUCATION 
A. Principles of education 

1. From simple to complex - 

2. From concrete to abstract 

3. The child learns as the race has learned 

4. From empirical to rational 

5. Self-development encouraged 

6. Study made enjoyable 
hi. THE PRACTICE OF EDUCATION 

A. Begins in the cradle - 

B. How Pestalozzi taught spelling 

C. What psychology directs 
B. Object-lessons - 

1. Extended - 

2. Value of this knowledge - - - 
E. Drawing - - - - 

1. Color ----- 

2. Geometrical drawing - - - - 143 

3. Perspective - - ... \/\& 



page 




97 




98 




99 


- 


99 




100 


100 


,308 


102. 


,309 


- 


103 


104, 


.310 


- 


105 




106 


107. 


,310 




108 


- 


110 


- 


113 


- 


115 


- 


115 


- 


116 




117 


- 


117 




118 


- 


119 


120, 310 


,312 


- 


122 


- 


123 


125, 312, 314 


- 


127 


- 


127 


- 


128 


- 


129 


131 


,315 


136 


,315 


- 


138 


- 


140 


- 


141 



328 spencer's education 

PAGE 

F. Primary conceptions op geometry - 147 

1. Geometry _____ 149 

a. Inventional geometry ----- 150 

b. Rational geometry - - - - 153. 
G. All education on like principles - - - 154 

iv. TWO FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES - 155, 317 

A. Self-evolution - 156 

B. A HAPPY ACTTVITY ----- 158, 316 

1. Moral effects _____ 159 

C. Education never finished - - - 161, 316 

Chapter III. MORAL EDUCATION - - 163 

i. INTRODUCTION - - - - - 163 

A. Preparation for the duties of parents - - 163 

B. Unreasoning moral training - 165, 317 

1. Children not born good - - - - 167 

2. Parents usually at fault - - - - - 168 

3. Harsh discipline not the best preparation for life - 171, 172 

4. Improvement possible - 173 

5. An ideal standard - - - - - 174 
ii. GENERAL PRINCIPLES - 175 

A. Nature's method _____ 175. 

B. Actions judged by results - 176. 

C. Punishment by consequences - - - 177 

1. Proportionate to transgression - 178 

2. Inevitable - - ~ - - - 178 

3. Permanent - - - - 179 

4. Following nature - - - - 181 

5. How different from usual punishments - - 182 

a. Methods behind the times - 184 

b. Consequences through the parent - ' - - 184 
Illustrations - - - - - 184 

The child's litter on the floor - 184 

The child tardy in getting ready for a walk - - 186 

The child who breaks or loses his knife - 187 

6. Advantages over usual punishments - 189 

a. Conception of cause and effect - 189 

b. Recognition of justice - - - - 190- 



TOPICAL ANALYSIS, FOR REVIEWS 329 

FAGE 

c. Avoidance of ill-feeling toward parents - - 192 

d. Estrangement of parents from children avoided - 194 

e. The four advantages summarized - 195 

7. More serious misconduct - - - - 196 
a. Illustrations - 196 

8. The relation between parents and children - - 190 

a. Now friend-enemies 200 

b. Better recognized friends - - - 201 

c. Advice better than command - 203 

9. Grave offences less frequent - - - - 205 
a. Still punishment by consequences - - - 206 

Proportionate to existing sj'mpathy - - 207 

Gentleness begets gentleness - - 209, 318, 319 

iii. MAXIMS AND RULES - - - - - 211 

A. The child at first a savage - - - 211 

B. Moral precocity detrimental - - - 212 

C. Excess of control - 213 

1. Parental self-control - - - - - 213 

2. Expression of disapproval - - - 214 

3. Commands only as a last resort - - 215, 322 

4. But to be rigorously obeyed - 216 

D. Self-government the aim - 218 
1. Self-will not deplorable - 220 

E. Duties of parents disciplinary - - - 221 

Chapter IY. PHYSICAL EDUCATION - - 225 

i, INTRODUCTION ------ 225 

A. The care of animals - - - - - 225 

B. Neglect of children's health - 226 

C. First, a good animal - - - - - 228 

D. The science of life - - 229, 323 
ii. FOOD - 230 

A. The quantity of food 232 

1. Appetite a good guide - - - - 232 

a. Gluttony a consequence of restriction - 233 

The taste of sweets 233 

Fruit - - - - - 234 



330 spencer's education 



PAGE 

Instinctive wants denied 245 

Natural reaction - - - - 235 

b. Parents not infallible 236 

B. The quality of food - - - - - 238 

1. Children's diet more nutritive - - - . 239 
a. 2Ian and boy ----- 239 

2. Digestion economized 241 
a. Vegetarian diet - - - - 242 

3. Energy dependent on nutritive food - 244 

a. Well-fed races dominant - 235 

b. Effect upon the horse 246 

c. Effect upon the laborer - - - - 247 

4. Variety of food - - - - - 248 

a. Change essential ----- 049 

b. Mixture of food ----- 059 

C. Dyspepsia from low-feeding - - - - 251 
iii. CLOTHING ------ 252 

A. Scanty clothing - - - - - 252 
1. " Hardening " children - 253 

a. Exposure at expense of growth - 254 
Shown by scientific exploration - 255 

b. Clothing an equivalent for food - - 255 

c. Children must provide double Jteat - * - 256 

d. No abiding sensation of cold permitted •■ - ^ 258 

B. Clothing too delicate fop. rough usage - - 258 

C. Clothing should be warm, woolen, strong - - 260 
It. EXERCISE ------ 260 

1. For boys - - - - - - 260 

2. For girls - - - - - 261 

a. Delicate women not attractive - 262 

b. Xo danger of making women boisterous - - 264 

c. Gymnastics inadequate - 265 

d. Happiness a tonic ----- 266 
v. MENTAL STRAIN ----- 267 

1. Modern physical inferiority - - - 267 

2. Produced by mental strain - - - - 269 
a. Illustrations - - - - - - 270 



TOPICAL ANALYSIS, FOR REVIEWS 331 

PAGB 

b. In a girls* school ----- 272 

c. In a normal school - - - - 274 

3. As dangerous In youth as In early childhood - - 276 

4. Nature's close account - - - - 277 

5. Effects of mental strain 279 

a. On growth - - - - - 279 

b. On the brain 280 

c. On health - - - - - -288 

d. On children ----- 284 
G. Cramming a mistake ----- 285 

a. Knoidedge not acquired - - - - 285 

b. Study distasteful - - - - - 285 

c. Thought hamjiered 286 

d. Health injured _____ 286 

e. Unhajypiness inevitable 287 
/. Women made unattractive . - - - 288 

Vi. CONCLUSION ----- 289 

A. Education too entirely mental - 292 

B. Preservation of health a duty 292 
NOTES ... . .- 295 



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• THE SCHO OL B ULLETIN PUBLIC A TIONS. ■ 




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